


Counting on your Fingers

by feathershollyandgolly, wickersnap



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)
Genre: Allusions to Recovery, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Road Trip, Found Family, Friends to Lovers, Gay Mutant Road Trip, M/M, Reconciliation, i cannot believe that's a tag, it's true though, there's a lot going on for not much happening but I did try, wild goose chase with added Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-17
Updated: 2020-09-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:21:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26493295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feathershollyandgolly/pseuds/feathershollyandgolly, https://archiveofourown.org/users/wickersnap/pseuds/wickersnap
Summary: Three years into Life After, Raven appears on their doorstep and bursts into tears.“Erik needs your help,” she says. “He needs you.”Scraps of notebooks, newspapers, random trinkets, even Erik's old jacket, and still the trail goes cold.
Relationships: Erik Lehnsherr/Charles Xavier, Hank McCoy & Alex Summers & Sean Cassidy, Raven | Mystique & Charles Xavier, The gang & Erik, The gang & Raven
Comments: 4
Kudos: 45
Collections: 2020 Cherik Bang





	Counting on your Fingers

**Author's Note:**

> With beautiful, incredible art by feathershollyandgolly on [tumblr](https://secretlymagneto.tumblr.com/) and [ao3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/feathershollyandgolly)!!! I am blown away, truly :'')
> 
> This was a very self-indulgent everyone lives and stays together fix-it because I do love the boys. I did a lot of neurotic research trying to keep everything (tech, locations etc) historically and geographically accurate, so if anything is off I either missed it or was too worn out to worry. I do hope you enjoy!!

##### \- Xavier House, Westchester, 1965 -

There’s a knock at the door.

It’s more of a pounding, really, followed quickly by a few rings of the bell. Charles hopes that someone, preferably Hank, is close enough to the foyer to hear it. He may have lost track of the days, but he knows it’s too early in the morning for visitors of any kind.

The banging goes quiet after a while. Instead Charles can now hear loud voices and shouting. He forces himself up, unsteadily, and opens the door.

“Hank!” he yells. It sends a shooting pain through his temple. “What’s going on?”

“Charles!” replies a voice that sends a shock down his every nerve. “Charles, where are you?!”

“Raven!” Hank growls. Their voices are getting closer.

“What?” Alex shouts from somewhere else. Charles’ head hurts. _“What?!”_

Raven, blonde and shining, comes careening around the corner. It’s like a mirage.

“Charles!” she says. Then she stops. Hank goes straight into her back, and they stumble. “What? But—your legs! It was on the news!”

“Didn’t know you _cared,”_ Hank sneers. Charles has never seen him look like that before. “You left him bleeding out—”

“I know what I did!” she shrieks. “It was stupid! All of us were stupid! But I need your help and everyone’s gone and I don’t know where Erik is and—!”

“Woah,” Charles murmurs, blinking heavily. “Slow down.”

Raven bursts into tears. Charles does the only thing he can think to do: he lurches forward and pulls her into his arms.

“Charles!” Hank protests.

Alex storms into the fray. “She’s been with _him_ the entire time and she walks in here demanding our help? Are you just gonna _let_ her?”

Charles squeezes his eyes shut and hugs her closer. Her whole body shudders with her sobbing. He realises quickly that the shuddering is accompanied by quick, successive shifts, as if she’s too unstable to settle anywhere for more than a moment.

“She’s my sister,” he mumbles.

“She _abandoned_ you! All of us!”

“She’s my _sister.”_

“Lay off, Hank,” Alex says. Something of a small child graces the forefront of Charles’ hazy memory, a boy with the same Summers-blonde hair.

Charles only stops stroking Raven’s back when her crying quiets. She settles into a skin, and he pulls her into the drawing room. He doesn’t have to tell the others to follow.

Sunlight streams through the slit in the curtains. It slices across the furniture, turning tired maroon fiery and black walnut syrupy. The chess table sits tucked, dusty, in an undisturbed corner. Its pieces are not lined up neatly.

He guides Raven unsteadily into a chair and sits opposite.

“What happened?” he whispers.

She stares down at her hands. A long moment passes before she speaks. 

“They all started leaving, one by one. It wasn’t a big deal. At least, Erik… Erik acted like it wasn’t. We moved around, kept low, terrorised a few governments… And then, then he disappeared too.”

The ticking of the grandfather clock is loud in such a quiet room.

“He what?” Charles barely dares to breathe.

“He _left,”_ she repeats harshly. “I… I woke up, Tuesday morning, and he’d gone. Just like the rest of them.”

Charles frowns. He licks his lips. “How long ago was Tuesday?” he asks Hank in a murmur.

“Three days ago,” Hank rumbles. Raven frowns.

Charles lets a long breath slip past his lips. His hair darts across his face, so he lifts a lazy hand to swipe at it. Misses. Tries again. 

He stops trying and instead buries his face in his knees.

“Are you… Drunk?” Raven asks.

“He’s halfway to functioning,” Alex says.

Hank huffs. “We wouldn’t let him get that bad.”

Charles looks up. She looks completely crestfallen.

“He just left you?” he asks. She nods. “Alone?” She nods again. 

Raven, alone in an unknown country.

Charles can feel the tears welling up and his throat twisting horribly, a familiar friend.

“He didn’t take anything with him, except his clothes. And the helmet. Always the helmet.”

Charles sniffs and blinks. “Were you okay? How did you get here? No one hurt you on your way over? No one’s after you?”

“No one, Charles. He left the money, too.”

“Before he left…” Charles sniffs, knowing this shouldn’t matter right now. His voice is strained to hell. “How was he, before he left?”

“Quiet,” she says hoarsely. “I think… I think every time he looked at me he saw you. He needs you, Charles.”

Charles cries, then. The tears slip from his eyes without his permission but he can do nothing at all to quell them.

“All right,” says Hank. He steps forward and slides his hands behind Charles’ back and beneath his legs, hoisting him into the air. “Let’s retire for the day. Does that sound good?”

Charles nods. He hides his face in Hank’s shoulder and behind his hair, even though the only other person in the house is Sean, maybe. 

Maybe he left too.

Hank kicks open the door to his room and lies him atop his bed covers. He takes the glass from the bedside table and fills it in the bathroom while Charles kicks and struggles under his blankets. 

“Drink,” he says, pushing the glass into his hands. Charles sips a few times, tears tracking through the grease on his face, but Hank sits patiently until he gets the message and finishes the whole thing.

“Get some sleep,” he murmurs, setting the glass aside and laying a warm hand on Charles’ forehead.

Charles grips his wrist, loosely, for a moment. “Thank you, Hank. I’m sorry.”

“There’s nothing for you to be sorry for,” he replies, and Charles is too tired to argue. 

The door snicks shut as Hank leaves. His voice rumbles quietly next to Alex’s as they leave.

Charles cries himself hoarse and then some more. He cries until he falls asleep, and then sleeps all day and all night. He wakes sometime around the next noon, and only because Hank is sitting very loudly in the chair in the corner.

Charles groans, stretching out in the tangled sheets. He revels in each pop and click of his back, but his hips ache and so do his thighs, like a twisting knife. He realises then that Hank has been silent the whole time—it’s his body that radiates anxiety and restlessness. He’s sitting so still that Charles wonders if he’s still breathing over there, staring so hard into his lap. 

Somewhere, a door slams.

“Hank,” Charles croaks. Hank is at his side in an instant, guiding him up and pushing another glass of water into his hand. Charles drinks half before he needs to stagger excruciatingly into the bathroom.

“Better?” Hank asks when he returns.

“Better,” he says. He stumbles, knees knocking into the bed. The pain is no longer sharp, focused, but an unsettling echo. Hank helps him into his wheelchair, and Charles holds his hand out expectantly.

Hank chews his lip, passing him the water. “Professor, I don’t think…”

“Hank, the medication.” 

“Charles.”

_“Hank.”_

Hank kneels in front of the chair. “Charles, we’ll need you.”

Charles recoils. “I’m much less help stuck in this bloody chair! I can’t, Hank, _I can’t!”_

“Charles, please,” Hank sighs, looking pained. “You want to find him, don’t you?”

“What—of course I do!” he snaps. “I just can’t deal with this Hank, I can’t!”

“We’re more than likely going to need your help.”

Charles feels like he’s choking on his own panic. _“Hank.”_

“I’m so sorry,” Hank whispers, expression torn. “I’m sorry. Can you be brave for us? For Raven? Erik? I know you miss him. We—” he pauses, throat working. “We all do, to an extent.”

Charles takes in a shuddering breath.

“We miss you too, Professor. Come back to us. Please.”

Hank takes both of Charles’ hands in his. Charles holds his breath. Nods.

“Thank you,” Hank says, squeezing his hands gently. “Thank you, Professor. I promise I won’t let anything else hurt you.”

Charles nods, barely. “How long was I out for?”

Hank grimaces. “Long enough for Alex and Raven’s punch up to blow over.”

“Shit,” he groans. 

“Nothing got destroyed, but… We’re waiting for you downstairs. Join us when you’re ready.”

Hank rises to his feet and pats Charles on the arm, and closes the door behind himself when he leaves. Charles leans forward and puts his head in his hands and breathes.

He sits like that for a long time. He sits there until his elbows are numb on his aching thighs and he gets too light-headed to think of anything but.

He can sit there forever, until his bones wither and his hair is just a memory, but there are people waiting for him downstairs. People that, even after all that’s happened, haven’t yet given up on him.

Slowly, painfully, he rolls into the bathroom.

He brushes his teeth and his hair and washes his face and body with a flannel. He lays out his clothes on his bed and then struggles into them, feeling only a little more human once he’s done.

He pushes his wheelchair into the corridor and down the hall, towards the lift. It’s late morning, maybe afternoon, and the streams of sunlight are warm on his skin.

He goes to the drawing room, but it is empty. His hands ache clutching disused wheels. 

He makes his way into his office instead. He can see Raven and Sean from the doorway, one slouched in his seat and the other primly upright. They sit facing the desk, behind which is a cavernous empty space.

_We’re waiting for you downstairs._

But they aren’t waiting for _him,_ they’re waiting for _Charles._ The Charles that would take charge and hold the torch high to light the way. He doesn’t know if he can be that Charles. Doesn’t know if he ever will be again.

He rolls inside, but not behind the desk. He stops in front of it, at the far side. The sun is a warm blanket on his shoulders. No one talks, but the silence isn’t heavy.

Hank enters a few minutes later with a tea tray, sitting it on the desk and handing out the teacups. Charles takes his gratefully and doesn’t quite burn his mouth when he hears rapid thudding footsteps approach from down the corridor.

“Hennn....ry!” Alex runs into the room and leaps up onto Hank's back without hesitation. Hank lets out a small “Oof,” but catches him and smiles. Alex quirks a smug smirk and sticks his tongue out at Raven. She glares. It’s a far cry from yesterday.

Charles frowns. “Since when have you two been so friendly?”

_“Friendly,”_ Sean snickers.

“Since you've been moping about for three years,” Hank says. He slaps a hand to his mouth, eyes wide. Alex snorts.

“For someone always inside everyone else's heads,” Raven says, “you really are completely self-absorbed.” Her tone is worryingly acerbic. 

Charles gives them what he hopes is a sheepish look. “Yes… I’m sorry about that.”

Alex drops to the floor and takes the chair next to Sean. “What’s the plan, then?”

Sean kicks his feet up into Alex’s lap and gestures to Raven. “Where do we start?”

She startles a little. “Oh… I thought…”

“Either we’re all in on this or none of us are,” Hank says. “Where were you last together?”

“Vienna. We were in a safehouse there.”

The four look at Charles.

“It’s a start,” he says slowly. “Did he leave anything of his behind?”

“He didn’t have much to begin with,” Raven tells him, even though they all know it anyway. “He took his briefcase and the helmet. A few changes of clothes. I didn’t… I probably didn’t see everything.”

“That’s all right,” Charles says automatically. 

“Do you think he might have gone far?” asks Alex.

“I really don’t know,” Raven whispers. “I haven’t seen anyone in days. Weeks. Even the people we met in the meantime.”

“Then we have to start there,” Sean sighs. “Case the place, look for clues. I’m sure he won’t have actually gone far.”

“So we’re going?” Raven asks. “We’re _all_ going?”

A sudden, sharp jab slices through the buzzing in Charles’ head. He winces.

“How soon can we leave?” Alex is asking Hank.

“Not sure,” Hank considers. “Professor?”

“Hm? Oh, as soon as you’re all packed, I suppose. There’s nothing for us here. I can call ahead.”

Hank watches him sharply. “Are you sure you’ll be okay?”

Charles waves him off clumsily. “I’m fine, Hank. Thank you.”

He looks over the young people gathered in front of him, and he realises; they don’t need him to guide the way, not really. Not anymore. They’re doing this with his _help,_ for _him._ Yes, Raven is worried, but they _all_ look at Charles with a pitiful mix of worry and sadness, and it makes him hate himself just that little bit more.

God, he’s selfish.

“Up we go then, no use faffing around here,” he says. “Places to be, old friends to find.”

They smile tightly and file out of the room. Charles’ hands have begun to shake, but they don’t seem to have noticed. He sips his tea and reaches for the phone.

##### \- x -

By the time they make it to the airport, the shakiness is definitely noticeable. Hank pushes them into a cafe to rest before they board and fusses greatly. Charles stares into his teacup and decides he doesn’t like what he sees. Not at all. 

His head hurts. There are so many _people._

Charles is beginning to regret his easy agreement to a spontaneous European adventure with three barely-of-age mutants and his estranged sister. Wasn’t he supposed to be the responsible one?

As expected, the flight is long and full of anxious energy. The buzzing decreases to the passing thoughts of his friends and the crew. He leaves the children—no longer children, not for a long time now—he leaves them to reconnect, to settle their differences over a chat long overdue.

Instead Charles thinks of Erik, of all the things he didn’t let himself think about because it _hurt._ Anything could be a clue to give them the leads they need, he thinks, and tries not to feel. The phantom pain in his chest begins to scream louder than the noise in his head. Erik, alone again, hunting ghosts with nothing but the clothes on his back and his mutant skill. Erik, angry and hurting others because of it, because Charles couldn’t do more. No—because he _didn’t._

“We can hear you thinking from over here, Professor,” Alex says when they’re still a few hours out. Charles looks up in surprise. Sean is asleep on Alex’s shoulder and Hank is passed out next to Charles. 

Raven eyes Charles with familiar concern. “We don’t even need your talents to.”

“Sorry,” Charles mumbles. He inhales deeply and moves himself for the first time in ages. Everything is numb.

“We’ll find him,” Raven says, as if she hadn’t been the one in hysterics just yesterday. Charles doesn’t say anything. Unbidden, the corner of his mouth twists sourly.

“We’ve faced worse with worse odds,” Alex reminds them. 

“There were more of us, then.” Charles says.

Alex huffs. “Come on, work with me here, I’m not used to being the optimistic one. We stood between the navies of two international superpowers and survived. I think we can deal with _Erik_ running away in a sulk.”

Charles laughs despite himself. “Thank you Alex. I’m sorry for being such a stubborn mule.”

“Nothin’ we’re not used to,” he grins.

“Cheeky.”

“Don’t be rude, Alex,” Hank rumbles, dreaming away. Raven and Charles have to stifle laughter. Alex looks rather put out, and then Sean almost smacks him in the face when they touch down and he jolts awake with a shout. Alex just grimaces and removes the elbow from his sternum. 

The sorry group parade onto the tarmac in an exhausted hush. Hank takes care of the bags, pushing Charles’ chair into the building so they can flash their passports at border control and pile into the nearest taxi.

“Florian-Hedorfer-Strasse,” Raven tells the driver. Her German accent is good. Charles feels proud despite his melancholy. 

The driver nods and sets the metre. 

It’s evening, mild, and the sky is clinging to the last strands of cloud washed in pink and gold. Charles watches the buildings and people flicker by outside the window and tries to abate the ringing in his head. 

“Nur hier, bitte,” Raven says. The driver pulls up outside a tall block of flats. Maybe ten minutes have passed, maybe thirty. The light has faded enough for the colour of each building to be indistinguishable. Hank unfolds the wheelchair and helps Charles into it.

The taxi doesn’t leave when Raven slams the door and strides towards them. 

“We’re lucky it’s a ground floor flat,” she whispers, leading the way inside the building. They pass dozens of identical doors without numbers. She stops at one and materialises a key from nowhere. She takes a deep breath, lets it go, holds a finger to the others and turns the key in the lock. It clicks, and the door swings open noisily.

The loudest noise in the next few moments is Charles’ own heartbeat in his ears as they all wait for something to happen. Nothing does for several moments, and Raven steps over the threshold.

Click… Click… Click, go her heels on the tile. She’s in there for at least three minutes before any of them dare to breathe again.

“Come in,” Charles hears her say. He can feel her disappointment, her sadness. It roils and burns at the top of her mind.

They enter the flat one by one. The light flickers on above them, splashing sandstone yellow over the walls and floor. There are four doors off the hall and one large living room at the end. They gather there and try to take it in.

There are maps and pictures and torn pieces of newspaper scattered all over the back wall. The scraps spill from the large corkboard, down towards the skirting board and up to the picture rail. Red string spans the space between pins, from Cuba to New Mexico to Rio to Cape Town and into Europe.

Most jarring of all, they find themselves face to face with their own photographs, pinned down the western Atlantic. Sean reaches out and traces his fingers over his freckled, unblinking face, laughing in monochrome. None of the red string loops around or crosses them. There are no pen marks anywhere nearby. Charles shivers.

“Let’s look around,” Alex says. “Sean and I can start here.”

“Are you okay to do the rooms, Professor?” 

“Yes, yes,” Charles says. “Let’s get going.”

He follows Raven, who opens the first door on the left of the corridor. Inside are a bed, two bedside tables and a wardrobe. There are no pictures on the walls. 

The ceiling lamp snaps on. The bed is perfectly made. The wardrobe is empty and the tops of the nightstands are clear. Charles goes to the one on the right and pulls open the drawers. There are two newspapers, an empty box of bandages, a pair of glasses and a nail file.

Charles holds the glasses to his eyes. “No prescription,” he says. 

“It’s a disguise, of sorts,” Raven says. He nods.

The first newspaper dates seven days ago. The second is eight. He puts them on his lap.

Raven opens the drawers of the second nightstand. “Nothing here,” she says, slamming them shut. 

Hank rips back the duvet of the bed and tips over the pillows. There’s a third newspaper, this time only five days old. Charles adds it to the pile.

The wardrobe is empty. Nothing above, nothing behind, nothing below. The same goes for the bed and tables when they check. There are no secret hide-aways that any of them can find, no wonky floorboards or peeling wallpaper.

Raven moves onto the next room. Charles runs his fingers down the bedsheets before he leaves, and without really wanting to, imagines Erik lying there alone. The thought tugs harshly at his heartstrings. He escapes to the corridor, following the others into what’s obviously a kitchen.

Hank is flicking through the wall cupboards, dislodging tins and patting each top, side and bottom. Charles takes the lower cupboards with Raven. They’re sparse anyway, and Charles isn’t sure they’re going to find anything in here at all.

“What’s this?” Hank asks, holding up what looks like a large unmarked matchbox. Raven frowns and takes it gently from his hands. It rattles.

She slides it open and numerous small metal objects clink around in her hand. Sheared edging, bolts, loose screws, pins, the like.

“Oh,” she says. “He hides these sometimes. Maybe he forgot about it.”

“Unlikely,” Charles mutters, he takes the sleeve of the box and slices it lengthwise with a fingernail.

“You could have just undone the join,” Raven grumbles. He rolls his eyes.

Lo and behold, scribbled on the card is a set of digits: bearings.

_46°28'06"N, 7°04'59"E_

“Do you think he wants us to chase after him?” Hank asks.

“No, I… Maybe he thought I’d follow on my own.”

“Maybe he’s just lost it,” Alex grumbles from the doorway. “Found anything? All we got were old-ass newspapers and empty chip packets.”

Hank continues searching through the cupboards while Charles goes to check on the boys. They do, in fact, seem to have uncovered a stash of assorted empty crisp packets and have strewn them across the floor accordingly. Charles sighs. 

“Pick those up for me, would you? And let’s see these papers.” 

Alex rolls his eyes but collects the packets. Sean hands him the newspapers. Alex is right, they’re more than likely too old to be relevant, but he keeps them anyway.

“I think we’ve left the taxi driver waiting long enough,” Charles says. “If we need anything more we can come back tomorrow. Shall we?”

The three of them nod. Raven dashes to her old room and clatters around for a minute or so before emerging with a hastily-packed bag. Alex pulls Hank out of the kitchen before they leave him behind.

Voices are spinning in Charles’ head and he still can’t quite keep a grasp on his own thoughts. Time oozes through his fingers, an off-kilter metronome, and the city spins around them.

They end up back at the airport, he thinks, but the next thing he’s aware of is Hank directing them into a travel hotel.

“Two rooms should do it, right?” Alex says. “As long as Raven doesn’t mind sharing with the Professor.”

“Of course I don’t,” she snaps. “But if you don’t want me here I can always go back to the house!”

“No one said anything about not wanting you here,” Sean says smoothly. “It’s all fine, really.”

“Get however many rooms you need,” Charles tells them, suddenly realising that he should probably at least give _some_ input. He frowns. “How were you planning on fitting the three of you in one?”

Alex, and Sean pout. Charles is ready to wave the matter away and feign a sudden lack of interest, but Hank laughs.

“Fold-out beds exist, you know.”

Alex and Sean pout again, but this time in Hank’s direction. The poor guy huffs. Charles catches a thread of fondness and embarrassment, of _Jesus Christ—_ before he mentally wrenches himself away.

He’s out of touch.

Hank returns with two keys and shepherds them all into the lift. He takes Charles and Raven up one floor to their room first, handing over Charles’ bag outside the door.

“We’re two-oh-three,” he says. “I’ll let you know if I find anything.”

Raven falls into the farther of the room’s twin beds immediately, too tired to do more than change into a robe. Charles kisses her forehead and wishes her goodnight, smiling at the incoherent mumble and hand squeeze he receives in return. He puts the newspapers he’s still holding on the dresser and tries to make a start on them, but, despite the incessant noise of the loud minds of hundreds of hotel occupants, finds himself nodding off.

He levers himself onto his bed, painstakingly awkwardly, and lets himself drift off. They always have the morning to investigate more.

##### \- x -

At around two fifteen, an hour after Charles surrenders to his bed, a loud knocking startles him awake.

_Here we go again,_ is Charles’ first, not-wholly-coherent thought. His mind brushes against the frantic jumble of thoughts outside the door. Unsurprisingly, Hank.

Raven groans and stumbles to her feet, unlocking the door clumsily in the dark.

“What?” she hisses.

“I’ve found the coordinates!” Hank replies, unnervingly energised. 

“Do your boyfriends not force you to sleep once in a while?” she snaps. Charles hears her come stomping back inside.

“What!? No, who—they’re not—”

“Oh shut it, I don’t _give_ a shit. Charles, Hank thinks you want to get up at dumbass o’clock to see those map coordinates.”

“Unfortunately, I’m quite invested,” Charles agrees blearily. His entire body quivers though the room is warm and the aircon is off. Is this supposed to happen? He can’t remember.

Hank settles him into his chair and guides them out of the room, up one floor in the lift and through the fifth door on the left.

“It’s us,” Hank says, closing the door quietly behind them. The desk lamp shines dimly over a cluster of books and paper and throws shadows over the sprawled bodies of Alex and Sean.

“It really is like one big sleepover now…” Sean mumbles.

“Shut up, Sean,” Alex groans, lifting an arm and dropping it on top of Sean’s head.

“Ugh, fuck off.”

Charles wheels himself over to the desk and realises that the large book is a world atlas, open and marked with a cut-out paper frame.

“Didn’t take very long, once I remembered I had the book. I’ve narrowed it down to here,” Hank says, tapping the frame. “It’s a village in Switzerland. Rossinière. It’s tiny and unremarkable, though… Do you really think he might have gone there?”

Charles hums. A strand of hair catches in his eyelashes and he flicks it away. 

“The more remote a place is the fewer people there are that will be likely to recognise him,” he says. “And, I suppose, the scenery is a plus.”

“Worth a look?” Raven asks. 

“I think so.”

“We should go just in case,” Alex says from his bed. “Might be something there he wants ’s t’ find… Or s’mthin’.”

Charles quirks a smile. “You argue a good point, Alex. I’ll see what I can do. Where-abouts is Rossinière, Hank?”

“Southwest, near Lausanne. Closer to Bern than Geneva.”

“I think we’d all better get some rest, then,” Charles says. “Big day tomorrow.”

“Today was a big day…” murmurs Sean. 

Hank peers down at Charles. “Are you sure you’re okay, Professor?”

“I’ll be fine, I promise,” Charles sighs. “Just… I need time.”

“As long as you’re sure,” Hank presses. His mouth remains a grim line, and Charles suddenly feels utterly terrible for it.

He smiles as best he can. “Get some sleep. It’ll do us all some good.”

Hank nods, but doesn’t stop hovering beside him.

“Come on, Charles,” Raven says quietly. “You need sleep too.”

“Thank you, my dear,” he says, and is grateful when she pushes his chair for him. His hands hurt.

They leave for Switzerland later that morning. Charles is woken around five by the swelling number of voices, their doubts and fears whispered in his ears.

“Hold on,” he says when they’re walking by the check-in desks. The group slows expectantly. “I think I can…” 

He presses tremulous fingers to his temple and skims through the minds of the desk staff. Even with almost a week of customers between, Erik and his strange helmet are very memorable to those who happen upon him. Several staff members have memories of him coming through Vienna on his way out, and—yes! Someone on the far left, a shy but dedicated young woman, checked him in on a flight to Geneva four days ago.

“Got him!” Charles breathes. “He came through the night Raven realised he was missing. We’re on the right track.”

“Thank god for that,” Sean says with an easy grin. “Can you imagine what chasing this guy around the world would be like? He’s like a super spy!”

“One that stands out far too much,” Raven snorts. “Let’s go!”

Alex is still grumbling about Hank’s atlas _(“I just can’t believe you were_ right _about bringing that thing_ —”) when they’re in the air. He and Sean are tangled in the European road map they’d found in the Austrian equivalent of WHSmith, folding and unfolding and getting uproariously lost in it. Hank has already marked out the airports and their destination, but has left them to struggle with finding a good route.

Charles scans the newspapers they’d taken from the safehouse. Raven takes the older ones, just to make sure, and Hank reads over both of their shoulders.

They’re full of neat, square holes where cuttings have been taken, leaving some of the headlines missing and some unreadable. Some adverts and articles have the occasional word or image taken from them, though there seems to be no rhyme or reason.

“Here’s something!” Charles says. In the bottom corner of page 13 is a box advertising summer breaks in the Alps. One edge has been partially sliced, as if the person holding the scissors had begun and then thought better of it.

“Chalet holidays… in the valley of Rossinière!” Hank reads. “Brilliant! Which one is this?”

“The one from seven days ago,” Charles says, marking the page before flipping to the front to check. “Do you think we should check this place first?”

“It’s a place to start,” Hank says.

“Probably our best bet,” Raven agrees.

They don’t find any more clues in the newspapers, but Charles is still giddy when they finally land in Switzerland. Alex and Sean have written down a messy chain of landmarks and roads to follow that Hank and Charles see fit to edit before they pile into the hire car and possibly get lost.

Charles is staggered by the memory he scraped from the sales assistant, of Erik, healthy and whole and just as he remembers him, standing in the exact spot they had followed him to. He barely notices when Raven uses the corner of the map to tickle his ear.

“It’s like a road trip!” Sean announces. “I’ve always wanted to go on one with you guys.”

“Really?” Raven asks. He shrugs.

“More like a ghost hunt,” Alex mutters. Hank gives him a look from the driver’s seat.

“Eyes on the road, please, Hank,” Charles says. 

“Is there any music, Professor?” Sean asks.

Charles frowns and fumbles around for the glove box. The latch clicks and the drawer falls open.

“Ah hah!” He grins, brandishing the eight tracks tapes in their faces. “Would you prefer The Beach Boys, Jimi Hendrix, or Elvis?”

“Beach Boys!” Raven cheers as both Alex and Sean shout “Jimi Hendrix!”

Charles raises his eyebrows and turns to Hank. 

“Elvis,” he says, eyes firmly on the road. The other three gape, aghast.

“All right!” Charles says happily. “Jimi Hendrix it is! But then we switch them out.”

“Fine,” Raven sighs.

“Dude it’s so cool you’re rich enough to get the modern cars!” Sean reaches out to fiddle with the volume controls with his illegally-long arms. “We even have a _stereo!”_

Charles smiles. “Yes, it does come with its pay-offs, doesn’t it.”

With a soundtrack of Beach Boys karaoke, driving through the mountains—some of which are still capped in snow—is a very odd experience indeed. Sean and Alex yelp and complain loudly when Hank misses a turning, fumbling frenziedly with the map. Raven expresses a firm anxiety about the sheer cliff she thinks he’s about to drive them off, especially when he threatens them with it if they don’t stop backseat driving. They manage to keep their mouths shut for a whole ten minutes after that, before the chaos resumes exactly where it left off.

After a long two hours, they pull into the Hotel Rossinière car park.

_“Bonjour!”_ Charles says to the woman at the reception desk in the lobby. _“Avez-vous des chambres à… nous prêter pour la nuit?”_

_“Bonjour!”_ she replies with a bright smile. “You are just in time. One more month and we would be full for the summer.”

Charles receives two keys and directions to the rooms, thanking small mercies for the availability of one he can access.

“Ah, one more thing Mademoiselle,” Charles says hesitantly. He slips a small folded photograph from his wallet. “We heard a friend of ours might have been about recently, and I was wondering, would you recognise this person?”

The woman looks at it with interest for a long moment. “No, I am sorry. I don’t think I ’ave seen a man like this around ’ere.”

Charles smiles genially, despite his disappointment, and stows away the picture. “No matter. _Vraiment, merci beaucoup.”_

Charles wheels away and hands one of the keys to Sean.

“Let’s put our things down and then take a wander out. Don’t lose that, by the way.”

“Did you ask the receptionist about Erik?” Raven asks.

“She said she hasn't seen him around. Didn’t even mention anyone in a silly helmet.”

She deflates a little, but doesn’t look surprised. “Well, the sooner we put our stuff away the sooner we can get on with the search.”

Their first port of call is to ask the hotel staff about the village. Charles can glean a few things from the minds of other guests and passers-by, one of whom Raven scares away with a glare when he gives Charles an odd look. He pats her on the arm and she softens, clutching his hand as if afraid he’ll disappear when she lets go. 

They wander along the roadside, sticking out like a bunch of sore thumbs and not giving half a toss. The locals can be grateful that nobody is blue, yet. 

The scenery down the valley is wonderful, as predicted; it’s something Charles thinks he could get used to. The air is fresh and crisp, carrying the feel of recent rain and a place long loved. Petrichor seems to be the circumambience of this place, and it reminds him of the home they’ve made for themselves in New York—of the home he and Raven built with everyone.

Alex and Sean go racing off down the side of a hill after one of them drops the map they now insist on carrying everywhere. Sean trips and tumbles several feet, head over heels, to the raucous laughter of his audience.

“Got it!” he yells, breathlessly, when he struggles to his feet. He waves the map wildly and almost loses it a second time.

It’s only late afternoon, but none of them thought to eat lunch, so after seeing not very much (grass, sheep and an impending rainshower) the group turn back and head for the restaurant they’d spotted on the main thoroughfare. 

“So,” Raven begins, tearing into a chunk of fresh bread, “who should we ask first?”

“That young woman, just over there,” Charles says. “Or that young man.”

“Really?” she asks, taken aback. “Do you think he'll have come out here? He prefers cooking for himself, usually.”

“I’m sure,” Charles replies as the young man in question brings them their drinks order. “Ah, merci Monsieur.”

“Bonjour, Mesdames et Messieurs,” says Daniel, the server, relieving his tray of each glass. “Three beers, a coca, and a lemonade.”

“Merci!” Raven chirps, letting her hand brush Daniel’s very overtly when she takes her coke.

“Merci beaucoup,” Alex says, retrieving his lemonade with eyes on the table.

“Are you busy, this time of year?” Charles asks politely.

“Not so much,” Daniel says. “It will be more in a few weeks, but it’s too warm for skiing and too cold for summer, so…” he makes a shrugging sort of gesture. “It is nice.”

Charles smiles understandingly. “Ah, it must be peaceful.”

“It can be. We see some, err… _Strange_ things sometimes, but it is fun.”

“Oh?” says Raven, leaning forward against the table. Charles has half a mind to tell her off later for wearing unsuitable clothing just because she can use it to her advantage. She must be freezing.

Daniel smiles and tilts his head. “Once we ’ad a woman who would only wear clothes with chickens on them. She stayed for a while, and was very nice. This week there was a man with a funny metal hat.”

“Oh?” Raven asks again, looking excited.

“Oh!” Charles says, as though the thought is only just occurring to him. He pulls out his wallet and the photo. “One of our friends came through here a few days ago. Did the man in the hat look like this?”

“Yes!” laughs Daniel. “I met ’im, briefly! He was funny. I did not know you were friends.”

Charles laughs too. “We are, we are. He recommended this village to us, and it’s really very lovely!”

“Thank you very much!” Daniel says, beaming. “He was staying in a chalet just on the other side of the village. If you would like to ask about them you can go to the building across the road, just there.” He points out of the window and Hank gets up to look.

“Thank you,” Hank tells him, smiling. “We’ll be sure to give them a look.”

Daniel takes their food orders and disappears off, chattering away to his colleagues as he does.

“See, it pays to be friendly with the locals,” Charles says, lifting his glass to smirk at Raven over the top.

“Not if they’re the New York ones,” she snipes.

“Well, we have a lead!” Sean whoops, lifting his drink also. “Cheers, dudes!”

They clink glasses with a laugh, and it almost feels like home again.

Charles finds himself wondering, between threads of conversation, what Erik would have to say about the beer here. What Erik might have said about Sean’s dire need of a haircut, or of Hank’s newfound confidence.

“It really is a bit of a road trip,” Hank argues, and Charles can’t help but feel the empty space at his side like a physical ache. 

God knows he has enough of those.

“I’m glad you came to us, Raven,” he says that night in their room. She stops abruptly, where she was brushing her gorgeous red hair, and walks back into the room.

“I’m sorry I ever left,” she confesses quietly. “I… I don’t know why you took me back so quickly. I _hurt_ you Charles. I hurt everyone. And, and Erik…”

“And we all know that everyone makes mistakes,” Charles tells her, reaching out. She steps forward and takes his hand. Her skin is soft and dark and warm against his, and it feels like a luxury for him to have her here. “We left you alone and went to Russia, remember? There were so many avoidable mistakes, but they happened, and we can’t change that. We can only try to do better next time.”

She launches herself into his arms, lucky that he’s sitting against the headboard and doesn’t go crashing down. He holds her as she climbs up next to him on the bed, strokes her hair while she hugs him and sniffles into his shoulder.

“I’m sleepy,” she says a few minutes later. “You don’t have your thesis on you, do you?” 

It’s not _that_ funny, but Charles laughs the hardest he has in three years.

##### \- x -

Erik, as it turns out, is not doing a very good job of acting like he doesn’t want to be found. Admittedly, he could just be leading them on a wild goose chase, could be toying with them for his own amusement, but Charles refuses to think he’s so far gone as to do anything so malicious.

It’s been a week since he took off.

Regardless, the five of them are raring to go by morning, well rested and hopeful. 

“Oh! You must be the friends of our guest!” says the man on the reception desk of the building Daniel had pointed out. He’s tall and kind-looking with numerous laughter lines. 

“Yes,” Charles says. “I’m Charles Xavier, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Gäste?” says a feminine voice from a room behind a counter. 

“Come and say hello, Marianne!” says the chalet owner. He reaches out to offer his hand to Charles, who takes it with a smile. “Enchanté. I am Thomas Pletscher, and this is Marianne.”

An equally tall woman hurries around the corner with bouncing dark curls and an excited smile.

“Ah! I heard you are the friends of Mr Lehnsherr!” she says, shaking each of their hands between both of hers.

“We are,” Raven says, smiling brightly. “We’re staying in the hotel, but he was very complimentary about your hospitality, and we were wondering if we could take a look.”

“Of course! You are very welcome. It is the quiet season, so we have few guests and few people to talk to. Follow me, I can take you.”

She bustles outside, leading them onto a rough path down the hillside. Raven and Sean chat pleasantly with her while Hank, Charles and Alex follow along sedately.

“Do you think we’ll find anything?” Hank asks quietly. 

“I’m not sure,” Charles says. He’s worried that they’ll hit a dead end, that Erik will disappear from the trail and leave them grasping at air.

“We have to give it a shot,” Alex murmurs. “If there’s anything of him at all, it’ll be worth it.”

The chalet sits farthest out, near the bottom of the valley and a short walk from the village. Its red roof glints happily in the sun, still wet from the rain. They stomp up the steps, Hank swiftly lifting Charles and his wheelchair without a strain while Marianne has her back to them. Alex smirks and winks at Charles, who can’t help but smile back. 

“There are two bedrooms on this floor and two downstairs,” Marianne tells them, rattling the keys in the lock. “The kitchen is upstairs, so take your time.”

“Thank you, Mrs Pletscher,” Charles says. He smiles the way he used to for the girls he met in the pubs and hopes he hasn’t lost his touch since. She laughs and follows them inside, shutting the door and hurrying over to fuss with the curtains. 

The ground floor of the house opens into a large sitting area with a lovely, wide fireplace and a stunning view from the balcony doors. The furniture is built of a soft, warm wood and upholstered with tartan, white, and beige that Marianne has decorated with furs and fluffy cushions and blankets. Charles can easily see Erik liking it, here. He rolls over to the glass doors to look out into the sunshine.

“Mr Lehnsherr was a wonderful guest,” Marianne sighs. “He even left us a gift.”

“Did he, now?” Charles asks, amused. 

“A bottle of wine from a little vineyard near Nice. Such a lovely coincidence—we went there ourselves, once.”

Charles chuckles. “Maybe it’s famous.”

He skims the surface of her mind for its name, just in case. She fusses more with the cushions on the sofa and the magazines on the table. Charles looks at her, and then back out over the balcony. He startles then, seeing Erik standing there so serenely, as if he always has been. He leans on the balustrade in silence, a small smile on his lips. 

The sun is bright over the valley, much brighter than a few moments ago, and the breeze ripples across the loose cotton shirt on his back. His hair is pale and bright in the sunlight, flicking lazily across features Charles could not forget if he wanted to. He turns his head to the side, looking back to the town, and Charles’ breath catches in his throat.

He realises that no, his eyes are not playing tricks on him. This is a memory accidentally pulled from the mind of Marianne, played out in front of him like a cruel, pristine strip of film. A second Marianne stands a mere few feet away from herself, ready to call Erik for lunch and watching him gaze out over the sheep and little wooden houses.

Charles blinks and the mirage is gone, though he’d barely know for the teariness of his eyes.

“Are you all right, Professor?” asks Hank. 

Charles smiles weakly up at him. “Fine, thank you Hank. Are the others enjoying themselves here, do you think?”

Hank returns the smile ruefully. “They’re worried for you, but I think they’re having fun. It’s different to moping around an empty house.”

“From what I hear, you haven’t quite been moping as much as I have.” Hank opens his mouth, suddenly a bit green. Charles grins. “That’s a _good_ thing. No, really, god knows it’s needed. I’m sorry to have you look after me for so many years. I’m not the best patient.”

“Not at all, Professor,” Hank chokes out. He rests a light hand on Charles’ shoulder for a moment.

“Hank, Hank, you’ve gotta come see upstairs!” Raven shouts through the house. “It’s gorgeous!”

Charles laughs and pats Hank on the elbow. “Go on, so you can tell me about it later.”

Hank coughs to hide his smile, walking off with his head ducked.

“Nice place you got here,” Sean tells Marianne, sauntering into the living room. “I’d like to come back some time, stay a while.”

Marianne beams. “We would be delighted to have you!”

Charles lifts two fingers to his temple and nods to him. Sean, thankfully, engages Marianne in energetic conversation.

_Er, Raven, if I say vineyards in the south of France, does that ring any bells with you?_

Raven frowns for a moment, and Charles can feel her doing the mental equivalent of chewing her lip. _We went to Nice, once,_ she thinks back. _We were in Marseille for an old base of Shaw’s. We blew that up._

_Perfect!_ Hank says. Charles hadn’t even realised he’s been projecting to him too. _I think we might have our next clue. Professor, can you take a look?_

Charles creases his brow in concentration. He’s out of practise, but he’s found that returning to his mutancy is a bit like riding a wobbly bike.

Hank is holding a torn page of a notebook, slightly yellowed and curled at the edges, that Raven found trapped under a nightstand. There are no words on the page, but it’s bordered by an intricate pencil drawing of vines and flowering plants twisting around its corners. It anchors near the bottom right corner. Charles realises, a moment later, that the smudged spiders’ web of lines and connections is a crude, unlabelled map.

_‘X’ marks the spot,_ Charles says drily. _Bring it with you, we’ll see if we can match it to the road atlas._

They come pattering down a few minutes later, still glancing around with thoughtful expressions.

“Seen enough?” Charles asks lightly. Alex has trailed in, at some point, and is standing next to him at the window.

“I think so,” Raven says, ever bright. “I’d love to come back sometime, Mrs Pletscher!”

“You are welcome any time, my dear,” says Marianne. “It will be a pleasure to have you. Now, it is time for lunch, so go and enjoy yourselves!”

They trundle back along the path to the village after the inordinately friendly Marianne. They shake hands with her and her husband and glance between themselves, unsurprisingly, finding themselves back in Daniel’s restaurant.

The notebook page lies in the middle of the table, otherwise covered by the map Hank and Sean are buried in. Charles shivers and feels in desperate want of a shower, despite having one not three hours before. He shakes the creeping sensation from the back of his neck, willing the hairs there to lie flat. He needs a haircut, too. Everything about him is beginning to feel grimy.

“Would you like some more bread, Charles?” Raven asks, poking him with the basket.

He smiles for her and takes some. “Thank you,” he says, and waits until she’s taken a large mouthful to ask, “How’s your pasta?”

She glares at him with exasperation, trying not to choke when she starts laughing.

Beside her, Alex snorts. “My brother used to try and hit me for doing that.”

“I imagine you would have done the same, were you in his position,” Charles says knowingly.

“Hah, never said I wouldn’t. It’s great being the older brother, I’m always too far out of reach.”

“Charles wasn’t so lucky,” Raven says, grinning evilly now she’s recovered. Charles sighs. 

“Yes, being able to _become_ me was cheating, I have to say. Not to mention jarring.”

Alex shivers.

“Here!” Sean cheers, uncapping a bright purple Sharpie and circling something on the map with a flick. He lies the map flat between his and Hank’s long demolished plates and taps his finger against the mark. All of them lean forward to see.

“It’s just north of Nice itself, near a place called _Shatew Brieson,”_ he says proudly.

_“Château Bresson,”_ Hank murmurs. 

Sean rolls his eyes at his amused smile. “Yes, as I said. I’m sure there are guest houses nearby ’cos Hank says Nice is a famous place for epic vacations.”

“The _elite_ used to vacation there, about seventy years ago.”

“Same thing, right, Professor?”

Charles tries not to laugh. “I cannot begin to fathom why you’d ask _me_ such a thing.”

“Yes, yes, whatever,” Raven says. “So when can we go? Tomorrow morning?”

“It won’t take us long to get there,” Hank wagers. “About two hours to Geneva, another hour to Nice, and about a half hour from there. Four hours total travel?”

“We can go this afternoon,” Charles says. Alex does a double take.

“What? Really?”

He shrugs. “Why not? I can make a call from the hotel. We check out today, anyway.”

“Awesome!” Raven says a bit too loudly. She glances around the restaurant and shrinks back, though no one is really disturbed.

“Once we’re done here you can go and pack your bags. Hank, will you be okay to drive?”

“Of course,” Hank nods, enthused. “Sean and Alex can find us a route.”

“Hey, why can’t I drive?” Alex complains.

“Or me!” Sean agrees.

“Or _me!”_ says Raven.

Charles raises a brow, feeling much, much more like his old self. “If you think I trust a single one of you to concentrate when you’re in an enclosed space together, you’re going to be very disappointed.”

##### \- x -

Charles is rather grateful he only has to listen to the Hendrix tape twice before they reach Geneva. Contrary to reason, Raven, Alex and Sean are more energetic ever—too energetic for thirty-somethings and almost-thirty-somethings—and are only winding each other up. Even Hank seems to be happier than usual. Charles wonders what kind of hysteria has deigned to descend upon his friends.

“Here, Alex, can you take the bags?” Hank asks, fetching Charles’ wheelchair from the back. “I’m going to return the car. Professor, we’re sure we can drop it here?”

Charles smiles thinly. “Hank, the answer won’t magically change between one minute and the next.”

Hank nods. “I’ll meet you inside.”

The car door slams. Charles wheels himself over to the others waiting for him.

“Here, Alex, give me some of those,” he says, holding out a hand. “You don’t have to carry everything.”

“It’s fine, really,” Alex tries to say, but Raven snatches their bags from his shoulder and hoists them onto her own. 

“Don’t worry about it, Charles. Let’s get inside, shall we?” She looks around almost impulsively, consistently, and never once drops her guard. Charles doesn’t want to think about the implications of that, so he pretends not to notice. She leads them straight into the nearest café once inside. 

“Tea, Charles?” she asks, settling their things beneath a table.

“Do you have to ask?”

Raven grins. “Never. Sean?”

“Coming,” he says, following her over to the counter. 

Alex waits until they’re being served before leaning forward on the table, head resting in his palm. “How are you, Professor?” he asks. “And don’t say you’re fine.”

Charles holds his stare for half a moment. “Things could be better,” he admits. “I’m very happy to have Raven back, of course, but I’m also quite tired. The crowds aren’t… _Great.”_

Alex nods. “Well, I’d be worried if you were any better.” He raps his fingers over the sticky polished wood. “And no, you didn’t abandon us.”

“Alex, I don’t think—”

“No, really,” he says with finality. “Your mental… _State_ is not your fault.”

Charles sits back and sighs again. “I hate it when you see straight through me.”

He smirks. “Don’t we all?”

“Here we are,” Raven says and sets down three mugs. “Your tea and hot chocolate, as requested.”

“I don’t remember requesting this,” Alex mumbles.

“You always have hot chocolate.” She slumps into her seat and smiles wearily to Sean.

“Coffee, m’lady!” He bows, sliding the mug into her hands.

“Thanks,” she tells him, already nose deep.

Charles glances over to the airport entrance so that he can catch Hank’s eye. It turns out that he needn’t have worried; Hank makes a beeline for the café before Charles can lift a hand to wave. Are they really so predictable?

“Thanks, Raven,” he says, sliding into a seat and picking up the second hot chocolate, and Charles is beginning to wonder if he’s really the only telepath around.

The flight to Nice is short but blissfully quiet. He isn’t sure who produces the deck of playing cards (or from where) but he’s grateful for the novelty of distraction.

“Ooh, look!” Sean says, less than fifteen minutes out. “It’s really pretty!”

All five peer childishly through the windows to watch the coastline slide away beneath them. They can see waves licking tenderly at miniscule sandy beaches viewed from so far above that it’s in less than quarter-time. France’s towns and villages sprawl like chalk veins around glittering water and heaving greenery, while the ocean floor is an awesome patchwork of sand and stone.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Hank says under his breath. Alex nods in agreement.

Charles’ awareness drops back to Earth with the realisation that these kids hadn’t even had passports until he’d handed them the application forms.

A wave of warmth and humidity greets them on the tarmac. Raven’s hands fly to her hair to keep it down when the sea breeze strikes, though it doesn’t stop her rolling down all of the car windows on the way up to Saint Jeannet. 

“Not quite the same as the rainy streets of Oxford,” she says gently.

“No,” Charles agrees. He watches the sunset glance off the sea in the breaks between the greenery. “Hardly at all.”

About half an hour they see the village sign in the trees welcoming them. The houses are squat and pretty, surrounded by beautiful flowers and bowing trees.

“Is this a good place to stop?” Hank asks, lifting a finger from the wheel to indicate a hotel sign. “Do you think they’d take us for a night or two?”

Alex shrugs in the back. “We can give it a try.”

Hank glances to Charles, who holds out his hands. It’s their choice, he isn’t calling the shots anymore.

Hank nods and turns into the graciously underwhelmed car parking area. He helps Raven help Charles while Alex and Sean wander ahead to the reception. The building is whitewashed and painted saffron by the sun. Ivy climbs beneath its window sills and over its awnings. 

“Here,” Sean calls, reemerging, “we have rooms!”

“How badly did you traumatise the poor receptionist?” Hank asks, laughing.

_“I_ did the talking,” Alex says with a long-suffering sigh, jogging past to collect their belongings. Sean hands Raven a key and takes off, announcing proudly that they’re rooming next door to each other, ‘for once.’ 

“We’ve seen like, two hotels so far,” Hank sighs.

Sean grins. “Still! Pretty smart, huh?” 

“I don’t know and I don’t really want to find out,” Raven mutters. She unlocks their door, pushes them through and promptly shuts out the bickering, and Charles smiles.

“They have a bar down there,” Alex announces when he finds them, dropping Raven and Charles’ bags in their room. “I think I’m gonna head down if you’d like to join.”

“I’ll be with you in a few minutes,” Charles says, “just want to find my toothbrush. Raven?”

“Oh, I think I’ll stick around here,” she decides. “I’ve already had to deal with you guys more than I think I ever thought I would.”

Alex snorts. “That’s fair. See you later.”

Charles does indeed find his toothbrush, shoved into a side pocket he always forgets exists, brushes his teeth and goes to join Alex in the bar. He’s apparently cajoled Sean into joining him, which was likely a feat of little persuasion, and they’re hanging around an unfinished game of pool.

“Winner stays on?” Sean offers.

Charles laughs. “Oh, no, I’ve never been much good at it. It needs too much precision for the drunk idiots we were.

“We know what your coordination is like, Professor, don’t sweat it,” Alex grins. “We won’t be long, anyway, but I opened a tab if you’d like.”

“How very kind of you, Alex,” Charles says, and goes off to order himself a drink. He watches the guys play several more games, all longer than the last and with poorer and poorer hand-eye coordination.

“I think I might head back to the room,” he says a bit later, gently buzzing and comfortably warmed. “Might ask Raven about… Theories, and things.”

“Have fun,” Sean grins, wiggling his fingers like an idiot.

Charles leaves, but never does get to discuss those his theories.

“Back so soon?” Alex grins. Charles returns to the space next to him, disgruntled.

“The bathroom door was locked,” he says, head resting on one exhausted hand. “Hank wasn’t in your room, either. I wasn’t about to stick around and get in the middle of… Whatever.”

Alex whistles. “I can’t tell if she’s in danger or he is.”

“Well we both know that Hank is anything but _weak,”_ Sean replies, a dirty grin worming its way onto his face. At least, Charles hopes he’s not imagining that. He could be, but that would really be awful. 

He sighs. “I just can’t keep up with you young people.”

Both boys snort. “Come on, Professor, we’re only like, eight years younger than you!”

“Don’t remind me. It feels like a much longer time anyway, my dear.”

“Aw come on, Sean scoffs. “You only pull the responsible adult thing when it’s convenient.”

Charles smiles at them. “Believe you me,” he says. “Eight years is a very, very long time.”

##### \- x -

“Is this the place?” Raven asks, clutching the map. The breeze flicks its corners and tugs on the hem of her floaty white sundress.

“Should be,” Sean replies. He pokes at the marker lines from over her shoulder. “This is where the roots ended up.”

The five stand on the side of the hill in Saint-Jeannet, in the driveway of a small, inconspicuous house. Behind it stretch rows upon rows of vines, scoring the landscape like pinstripes in vast fields. The city and the sea shimmer below them in gorgeous morning sunshine. 

Alex scuffs his shoe against the floor, unreadable behind his sunglasses. “Do we go in and ask to have a look around?” 

“Preferably not,” Charles says. The villages along this glossy hillside are serene and enchanting, with so little noise to upset his mind that he wonders if he shouldn’t just relocate. Charles is much more comfortable avoiding people, today, and has already prodded several hotel guests in the another direction just this morning. He skims his thoughts over the little house and finds both inhabitants in the kitchen.

“Madame and Monsieur Fortier are currently enjoying a quiet, unhurried breakfast after a morning in the fields,” Charles tells them. “We should be able to avoid any employees. Now come on, let’s have a look for any other buildings around here.”

Sean leads the way over the gravel to the side of the first outbuilding, a small shed full of gardening equipment and fertilisers. Alex pushes Charles’ wheelchair for him, Hank murmuring something or other beside them about building a new, powered one, and Raven keeps a delicate hold on her wide-brimmed sun hat between forefinger and thumb. 

“Nothing in here!” comes Sean’s muffled assessment. 

“You sure?” Alex asks. 

“Pretty positive,” Sean’s head reappears around the door, “I think they would have noticed anything amiss in here.”

“It does look pretty small,” Hank agrees. Alex crunches over and sticks his head in, too, before grunting and returning to Charles.

“Yeah, nothing in there.”

Raven turns to look out over the fields. “There are bound to be other sheds out there, right?”

“Most likely,” Charles says. “There may be a bigger building he’s hidden something in the back of.”

“Let’s go then,” says Alex, “there’s no point wasting time up here.”

The next outhouse they find has a number of large buckets and baskets and nets and covers, and no matter how extensively they search they find nothing. Afterwards they find a long greenhouse full of flowers—a plant nursery—which is also devoid of any missing mutant mementos. They have to duck behind the building when a farmhand appears out of nowhere, and Charles helps keep the girl’s eyes firmly where they _aren’t._ He also takes the time to discover the whereabouts of the last outhouse; there seems to be a large barn on the other side of the estate full of rarely-used machinery.

“We need to try the other side,” he tells the others. “There’s a place he might have been able to hide in.”

“You’re sure, Professor?” Hank asks. “You don’t want to make sure we’ve checked everything this side first?”

“I’m sure,” he says, and Raven gins. She ushers the boys back up this hillside quickly, letting Hank help Charles.

The barn is two storeys tall and is made of unpainted, heavily weathered wood. The large hinges and rebar have rusted accordingly, and the floor is strewn with hay and grit.

“Looks like they barely go more than five feet from the door,” Alex muses. They filter down both sides towards the back, and when they find nothing Hank, Alex and Raven climb up into the rafters.

“Signs of life!” Raven shouts down excitedly, a moment or two later. 

“Oh?” Charles prompts, gazing up blindly alongside Sean. Something heavy moves and someone goes into a coughing fit.

“Shit!” Alex wheezes, “Why is there so much dust?”

“Looks like he was camping out up here,” Hank reports, ignoring Alex’s distress. “Blankets, signs of disturbed items, and less dust.” 

“Anything else?” Charles asks.

“Nothing that I can see,” he replies. “Maybe he went somewhere else.”

“Then we’ll have to find it,” says Sean. “Raven? D’you know where he’d go?”

Raven reappears, hauling herself quickly back down the ladder, dress flowing around her thighs. “You’ll have to follow me.”

Once they escape the grounds of the vineyard unnoticed Charles, for once, gives her the wheel. They drive in relative quiet, windows down against the humidity. She takes them into the city, through traffic and tourist traps to a busy little parking area near an old, partially pedestrianised area of town.

“Welcome to Old Nice,” she says, leading them into the buzz. They pass through street after narrow street, dodging people and cars and sad-looking stray dogs, until they come to the corner of Rue Barillerie and Rue Sainte-Marie. There are so many more minds here, a whizzing mess of noise that isn’t quite coherent and in perfect clarity all at once. At the other end of the short Sainte-Marie alley Charles can see a few stalls of a market in full swing, with the scents of cheeses and fresh fruit funneling towards them on the ocean air. 

“What are you doing?” Alex asks. Raven ignores him and crouches below the second window grate on the right. “You know that’s someone’s house, right?”

“Thank you, Alex,” she sighs, running her fingers below the sill and along a crack in the stone. “Ah, here it is.” 

From a slit in the wall she drags a rather worn piece of hotel stationery. She opens it from the fold to another slightly-smudged pencil drawing.

“I think we’ve found the next clue,” she murmurs. 

“Where is that?” Hank asks, peering over her shoulder. 

“Split,” she says.

Charles clears his throat, unsure. “As in, Yugoslavia?”

“Yes,” Raven says. “This is Saint Domnius. We were there, once, in hiding. They have a lot of churches there—Erik wasn’t as impressed as the others, to say the least.”

Charles can imagine. The drawing is of the cathedral bell tower and its grand, octagonal chamber, positioned as if the artist had been standing at its base as they sketched. Beside them are tall, Corinthian columns bearing a length of arches into what may be an adjacent hypethral courtyard.

“I guess you remember how to get there?” Alex asks. He shifts around uncomfortably next to them, glancing at each person that passes by.

“Yeah, but we’ll be able to find it on the map,” Raven says. “Come on, let’s get back to the car.”

“Can’t we see the beach?” Sean whines even as he’s dragged along by the hand. Raven stops and turns on her heel. Her hat flops into her field of view, but she prods it away absently as she considers them.

“I suppose I can’t in good conscience bring you here and _not_ take you to the beach,” she allows, and strides straight back into Sainte-Marie, dragging Sean along with her. Hank and Alex glance at each other and then to Charles, who shares their shrug and follows on. They burst out into the market, buffeted and enticed by the smells and sounds in front of them. Raven leads them across the street and through a tall archway nestled in the run of buildings, making the mistake of taking them past several cafés and restaurants on the way and almost losing Hank. They cross a quiet road and head through a second archway, finally emerging across from the promenade.

Seagulls swoop over the palm trees on the avenue, rising on thermals and screaming at each other sharply. They cross the last road and Charles can’t help his fervent need to scan the horizon. There’s nothing out there, of course, just bright blue beneath even brighter blue and small children running across the sand. He begins to feel silly for panicking until he reaches out to the others next to him, until he feels how they’re beginning to relax and even smile. He’d barely noticed the tension was there, after all, until now.

“Come on,” Raven mutters after a few moments, “the car’s this way.”

##### \- x -

Sitting in, once again, another airport, Charles is beginning to wonder how Erik found the money to fly everywhere. Several assistants and clerks have unknowingly given Charles flashes of memories of Erik passing through just days ago, with and without his helmet, but Charles knows that they’ve been all over Europe and back. He imagines Erik sitting serenely in busy lounges, nose firmly in the morning newspaper, or on commercial flights next to surly businessmen who scowl at the children of other, wealthy passengers. It’s an interesting thought, but not one that isn’t least subsidised by his own, fonder memories. He wonders if everything’s changed.

He decides, a few minutes later, that he does not want to know. He doesn’t want to know how Erik regards his fellow passengers, if he chats pleasantly with the stewardesses. He would love to know his destination, to know what kind of game he thinks he’s playing, but can’t quite bring himself to want to know what’s running through that terrible, beautiful mind of his. 

Erik is so long out of Charles’ reach he’s beginning to feel misty and incongruent. A figment of a dream.

“How are you doing, Sean?” Charles asks in lieu of thinking.

“Huh?” Sean says, staring off into space. His gaze falls somewhere near the foot of an opposite row of waiting room chairs. “I’m good. Why’d you ask?”

Charles smiles. “You’ve been doing such a wonderful job of keeping us in line, I was thinking you’re probably due a break.”

Sean blinks into awareness and smiles, meeting Charles’ eyes warmly. “I don’t need a break, I’m having fun. I love you guys, and we’re finally out here doing something. I should be the one asking if you need a break, old man.”

“Good to see you haven’t lost your cheek,” Charles chuckles. “As long as you’re happy, that’s all that matters to me. All of you.”

Sean’s smile goes lopsided in the warmth of his kindness. “Yeah, you should know we feel the same.” His gaze drops back to the floor, like he’s studying the incredibly interesting threadbare blue carpet. 

“We’ll find Erik, y’know,” he says. “He’s not gonna run forever, and when we find him we’ll bring him home. We’ll drag him, if we need to.”

“Thank you,” Charles says quietly. “Your certainty does wonders for morale.”

Sean laughs shortly through his nose. “Speaking of—where the hell’ve the guys got to?”

“God knows,” Charles sighs. “Let’s just hope they don’t stage another international incident.”

“What’s this about international incidents?” asks Hank’s voice from behind them.

“Please don’t say you two’re plotting,” Alex joins in, plonking their duffle on Sean’s head. “He’s absolutely terrible at it, always gets distracted.”

“That’s def-thingy of character,” Sean grumbles, letting the heavy bag fall to the side before fumbling to catch it. “Jesus Christ Hank, your fucking books.”

“It’s _defamation,_ and don’t hate the books,” Hank says, “they’re what got us here.”

“It’s a book, Hank,” Raven sighs. “Anyway, car’s out front. Logically we have two options: go straight to the cathedral, or go to the safehouse in the opposite direction.”

“How many people know about the safehouse?” Alex asks immediately.

“We were the only ones who stayed there, so I think it’s just the two of us.”

Alex glances to Hank and then to Charles, as if checking that he isn’t the only one who finds such a thing suspicious. “I guess we should check there first? Seems most efficient, right?”

“Sound like the best option,” Hank agrees, pushing his glasses back up onto his nose.

“Come on, then,” Raven says, “let’s move.”

The house the taxi takes them to is pretty and quaint and tucked away on the coastline. It’s barely a stone’s throw from the copse of little houses they passed in nearby Seget Vranjica, a nearby fishing town. The house itself has clearly not been lived in to be maintained—they have to fight off a collection of flora that is far outgrowing its bounds in the front garden—but it holds itself together well and cuts an impressive standing in the beautiful Seget landscape.

Shaking a thorny frond from the cuff of his jeans, Sean whistles lowly. “How did he manage to get his hands on a place like this?”

“Erik can be a scary man when he needs to,” Raven laughs.

Charles rolls his eyes. “Yes, about as intimidating as a feather duster.” Hank hides a smile, but Raven gives him an unimpressed look. “Should we get inside?”

Even confident that no one else would know about the place, Raven repeats her ritual of creeping inside to make sure they’re in the clear. She steps out again, a minute or so later, and grins.

“I think we have good news,” she says. “Everything’s been cleaned recently. Someone’s been around.”

“You don’t think he hired a cleaner, do you?” Alex mutters. Sean tries (fails) not to snort, and walks through the door.

Unlike the flat in Austria, the villa is split over two or three levels. Charles tries to content himself in the living room moving cushions and opening cabinets but grows ever-frustrated that he can’t easily help the others upstairs. The majority of the work is falling to them, he thinks, and it isn’t fair. It isn’t fair that he can sit back and direct them, and it isn’t fair that he can’t get in and _do_ something.

Still, Erik was here, that’s almost for certain. The place has only the finest layer of dust on the windowsills, the curtains are neatly pressed and tied back, the kitchen is spotless and cleared of perishables, and there are two new-looking but undoubtedly finished books sitting on the coffee table. Charles picks one up, _The Naked Ape_ by Desmond Morris. Unsuspecting, he flips open the cover only for his chest to simultaneously constrict with pain and expand with hope. His fingers quiver as he traces the words left by pen and not printer. Erik’s neat, charming penmanship has not changed in the three years since he left.

_Charles would like this one,_ it reads.

“Hey, Professor,” says Hank from the doorway. Charles slaps the book shut between his hands and looks up, ignoring the burning pressure behind his eyes.

“Have you found something?”

“Sort of.” Hank crosses the room and presents him, gently, with an all-too-familiar jacket. Charles takes it from him, unexpectedly surprised by its very real weight dropping into his arms, and runs the soft leather through his fingers.

“Why?” he asks simply, unable to force much else through his closing throat.

“Maybe he really is leaving a trail of breadcrumbs.” 

“Or he had to leave in a hurry,” Alex adds from the corridor.

Charles nods. “Did you check the pockets?” 

Hank grimaces. “Nothing.”

Charles nods, tracing each scrape and scuff thoughtfully. “What do you make of this?” he asks then, handing over The Naked Ape. Hank flips through it, eyebrows jumping at the multitude of margin notes. Charles picks up the second book to check, but this one is fiction and has barely a creased page to mark it read.

Hank sighs and returns the book. “I think this means he’s not as far out of reach as he’d like us to believe,” he says, holding Charles’ gaze for a moment longer before he returns upstairs. If Alex notices how Charles’ knuckles pale when he pulls Erik’s things into his lap, he kindly doesn’t mention it. He too leaves a moment later, and Charles exhales a long, shaky breath.

The jacket is not warm, and should not be after days without its owner. It’s the same one Erik’s always worn, taken silently from the mansion sometime between Cuba and Life After. It still smells like him, unmistakably, as if it’s worn into the lining—a crucial, defining element. Something warm and clean and indescribable. Charles allows himself to hold it to his mouth for only a second or two, mostly lest the others catch him.

Upstairs there’s a commotion and the clatter of wooden drawers.

_Have you found anything promising?_ he asks Raven.

She smiles. _I think so. Take a look?_

Once again he finds her holding a torn page of a notebook. This time, however, it’s joined by several more from the bottom of an old dresser.

_Bring them downstairs, please. I think we should sit down and take a look._

There’s the tromping of four sets of feet coming down the stairs. The boys trail in after Raven who spreads the pages out on the coffee table and sits back on the sofa. Alex and Sean drop down beside her and Hank digs around in one of the bags.

“The goddamn Atlas?” Alex asks. “Really, Hank?”

Hank scoffs. “Really.” He kneels across from them and puts it down above the pages, opening it to show them the previous paper scraps tucked away in central Europe.

“This one we found in Switzerland,” he says, holding up the crude map of Nice, “and this one we found in France.” He holds up the drawing of Saint Domnius, and then lies them both flat on the pages. He produces a roll of Scotch tape and pastes them in over their corresponding countries, using an extra strip to scribble on the dates the papers were found. He traces a finger along the coffee table, above the new pages. “These are all from the same or a similar notebook, which means they fell out, weren’t wanted, or were left, ostensibly, for us to find.”

The first two have a number of newspaper clippings pasted to them, photos, text and headlines. The messages seem abstract, not something they're necessarily supposed to understand, but Charles is sure that if they checked the old cut-up newspapers from Austria they’d find a few matches. 

The third and fifth pages are also abstract—sketches this time. A hand, posed arbitrarily. A crushed ringing bell. Someone’s long flowing hair. A pattern of scales that matches those at Raven’s temple. The vague roof of an old house.

The fourth page, between them, is their clue.

“Istanbul, Turkey,” Hank says, fussing around with the road map. “The coordinates should lead… Here. About forty-one degrees, two minutes north, twenty-nine degrees, nine minutes and a few seconds seconds east. On this road.”

“Well, that was easy,” Sean murmurs. “Worrying, don’t you think?”

Raven frowns. “A little. We were never on the outskirts, we’d barely landed before we left… How do we know which building?”

“We’ll have to guess, probably,” Alex sighs.

“I can always check with the neighbours,” Charles suggests.

Hank hesitates. “You should be careful with your abilities, Charles. People might get upset if they find you in their heads.”

“It’s our best bet,” Raven insists. “Our trump card, even.”

“We need to use everything we have available to us,” says Sean.

Charles holds up a hand. “All of you are right. I’ve been out of action recently, yes, but I’ve not completely lost hold of my control.”

Hank watches him with the uncomfortable demeanour of someone debating what to say, in turn watched closely by Raven and Sean.

“…So,” Alex says, “are we gonna head out again?” 

“We should find somewhere to stay for the night,” Hank replies, snapped quickly out of his dilemma. “We need to rest.”

“I thought we were staying here?” Raven tilts her head, a touch confused. “It’s not compromised, and the only other person who knows about it is the one we _want_ to run into.”

“Professor?” Sean asks. All four of them turn to Charles, who looks between them quickly, surprised and wary.

“I don’t see the problem,” he says slowly. “Staying here saves us finding another taxi, hotel, et cetera. It seems… Efficient.”

“Good thing we got some dinar at the airport,” Hank chuckles. “I’ll go find a grocery store of some sort. Come with me, Alex?”

“How far are we gonna hafta walk?” Alex whines, even as he stands and stretches his arms.

“I can always carry you back,” Hank offers.

He laughs. “Now you've done it. If you think I’m passing up a free ride you’re insane.”

The front door slams when they leave, agitating the headache Charles is abruptly reminded of. He sighs and runs a nail down the inside of his temple, flicking away stray hairs.

“How are you doing, Raven?” he asks, flicking his gaze up to hers. “This isn’t too much for you, is it?”

Raven sighs and shuffles up onto the arm of the sofa, leaning down to hug him. “Of course not, Charles,” she says softly. Her warmth seeps through Charles’ jacket and into his back, melting some of the tension. “I’m fine. Better than fine. I’m home again.”

“I’m so glad you came back,” he whispers. She digs her nose into his shoulder, easily rediscovering the space she seemed to have carved as a child.

“It’s kinda awesome that everyone’s coming home again,” Sean says from where he’s now lying across the whole sofa. Raven sits up smiling and slides back to sit on his feet. “I mean, we were just stuck on our own for ages, couldn’t start the school properly, but now Raven’s here and we’re gonna bring Erik back. Even if he was always trying to convince us he was a psychopath.” He throws a smile at Charles and shrugs. “Family, huh?”

“Family indeed,” Charles agrees, wondering not for the first time about the parents that have all but abandoned their sons. They haven’t heard a word since Charles and Erik had picked them up off the streets, not even after three years.

“It’ll be nice to have our dads back,” Sean muses. Three seconds manage to tick by on the clock before Charles wises up enough to throw a sofa cushion at his head.

“If you’re trying to wind me up it’s not working,” he grumbles. The cushion bounces harmlessly off the top of his head.

“I think it is,” Raven mutters. Sean snorts, and she giggles, and then all three of them are cracking up together.

##### \- x -

Istanbul is not quite as warm as Split, but warmer than Nice and twice as busy. The airport and city are bustling when they arrive, so Hank runs off to find them a hire place as soon as they get through customs. There are too many people around for Charles to glean anything but another headache, so he quickly decides to stop trying.

No signs, yet.

Hank and Alex find a city roadmap and plot their journey from the airport, aiming for the shortest route they can manage. The traffic is quite heavy for such a time in the morning, giving them plenty of time to marvel over the city and the Bosphorus strait, when they cross it. Farther from the central districts, the streets stay much the same. More cramped with homes and apartment buildings, maybe, but the complexes barely stoop down from the city centre. Instead, some tower even taller, washing lines strung between balconies and telephone poles tipping precariously. It’s over an hour’s drive to the coordinates Hank marked, leaving them with a culture-shock soundtrack of Turkish radio. Everywhere is noise and people and movement. It’s brilliant and horrifying for many of the same reasons; it turns out that locking yourself into exile for several years doesn’t do much good for one’s social adjustment.

“Are we nearly there yet?” Raven and Sean chorus, possibly as part of an ongoing attempt to re-do their sub-par childhoods.

“Yes,” Hank sighs, “just be quiet, will you?”

He eventually pulls up on the corner of an unremarkable road, parking between the front of an empty lot and a corner shop. Maybe a fifth of the buildings around them are empty, either half-built or half demolished. The block in front of them is rubble. 

People wandering up and down the street while Alex and Raven fuss over something or other in the back. Charles skims their minds gently and unobtrusively, unsurprised when he gets nothing from most. He turns to the people in the corner shop and startles when the couple behind the counter offer him their vivid memories of Erik, two nights ago, buying food, a bottle of water and a packet of cigarettes.

“We’re close,” he says triumphantly. 

“Great!” Raven grins. “Do you know where he stayed?”

Charles shakes his head. “Why don’t some of you go in and buy something while I try to find someone who saw where he went?”

“Who has the money?” Sean asks, unclipping his seatbelt to rummage in all of his pockets.

Hank clicks his tongue. “I gave you some like two hours ago, don’t tell me you—”

“Ah!” he interrupts. “Found it. I wanna get some chips and stuff. Anyone else? Raven?”

“I’ll come,” Raven says. Charles watches her face flicker through a few unfamiliar masks in the mirror. She settles on one with long, dark hair and a plain shirt and trousers before getting out of the car. Sean shrugs off his jacket and slings it across the back seat.

“Get me a pepsi or something, yeah?” Alex says.

“Coke it is,” the both of them chime, slamming the door in his disgruntled face.

“I have to say,” Charles mutters, “for a man bound to stand out in these suburbs Erik sure is hard to find.”

“Are you getting anything?” Hank asks.

“A little.” He pushes his fingers more firmly into his temple and rests his elbow on the car door. “Not many people seem to have seen him. I’m getting more from a place a few roads back.”

“Maybe this is his favourite corner shop,” Alex says, and laughs at his own joke.

Hank chuckles. “You know, I wouldn’t be surprised.”

Charles waves his other hand around. “Yes, yes, very funny. Someone saw him going into a block down there. Maybe we should take a look—I can direct you from here if you think that’ll keep us low-key.”

Hank frowns. “I don’t want to leave you here alone. Who knows who could turn up?”

“What?” Charles scoffs lightly. “I’m _fine_ on my own, Hank. I have plenty at my disposal.”

Hank goes quiet, considering, but the furrow of his brow only deepens. “Are you sure—”

“C’mon, Hank, he has a point,” Alex says, shrugging. “Weren’t we all shit scared when Erik and the Professor first picked us up? We can all do pretty insane things, so if we just trust in our abilities, we’ll be perfect.”

Hank sighs. “I was going to ask if you’re sure you’re strong enough to do it.”

Charles smiles. He reaches back to pat Alex’s knee before touching his fingers to Hank’s elbow. “I really am okay, Hank. Sometimes it’s tiring, but the hardest part is holding my shields around large numbers of people. I’m rusty, not decomposing.”

Alex snorts. “See, not quite an old man yet.”

Charles raises a brow. “Do people often mention how charming you are?” 

The back door swings open again to the return of Sean and Raven. Several weighted packets crinkle loudly as they hit the leather seats.

“They only had pepsi,” Raven says glumly as she hands Alex the bottle. “It’s a shame we couldn’t find you anything superior.”

“They did have these things though,” Sean grins. He holds up a tube of what claims to be super-extra strong mints. 

“Well, at least the smell might improve around here,” Hank mutters. “Just don’t throw up in the car, okay? Or _you’re_ cleaning it.”

“Woah, you think I can’t handle this?”

“Sean, you can barely eat sweet chili.”

“You—”

_“Task at hand?”_ Charles reminds gently, clearing his throat.

“Sorry, Professor.”

“Right,” he says. “Well. There’s a building a couple of roads back that Erik was seen entering a few nights ago. If I stay here, you’ll draw less attention, and I’ll be able to guide you and stay on the lookout.”

“I’ll stay with you,” Raven says immediately.

“No, no, I want you all to go. You’ll be safer together, I want you looking out for each other. I’m perfectly fine here, I promise.” She frowns at him but keeps her mouth shut. “Will any of you, ah, _mind_ greatly if I sit in the back of your heads?”

“No, Professor,” Hank says. Alex shakes his head with a kind tilt to his lips.

Sean grins and makes to get out of the car. “Do what you need to, man.”

Charles smiles. He reaches across and places a hand on Hank’s shoulder. He tries to soothe the jagged edges of his worry as gently as he can, grazing his thumb back and forth in a manner meant to be comforting.

“We’ll be fine, Professor,” Hank says, smiling right back. “You’re working yourself up about nothing.”

“That’s right! We’re fine, so make sure you pay proper attention, Charles,” Raven concurrs. They follow after Sean, slamming the car doors behind them, and Charles settles himself into the familiarity of Raven’s thoughts.

_Head away from the shops,_ he tells her, _down towards the large red sign there—yes, that one. Take the second left. Now left , through that alley. Right at the end there, and halfway down is a half-built block of flats. Next to it is your building, but it has a keypad lock on it._

_Really? Are the owners well-off?_ Raven thinks to him, somewhat unexpectedly.

_I’m not sure,_ he says. _I think so. Anyway, you should probably use the construction site to get in. One of the tenants on the middle floor of that side has left their balcony doors open._

_Can you direct us to the right one?_

_Of course. Now, duck in just here. There should be stairway access already built._

_Ah, we see it._

_Professor?_ Sean projects. _There’s someone taking interest._

Charles slips his consciousness into Sean’s, sparing barely a sliver of a moment to re-orient himself before he finds the man standing across the street watching.

_Raven, I’m going to need you to stop for a minute,_ he says, smiling when she stops Alex to feign an untied shoelace. Luckily, the only thoughts drifting over the onlooker’s mind is the _strange appearance of foreigners, are they lost, so far out—?_ so Charles gently nudges him on his way, doing the same for everyone else on the street. Eyes fall away from them like taboo.

_No one’s going to bother you, Sean, he’s gone now. Raven, you’re good to go. Second floor up, third balcony along the next building over. Make sure you don’t fall._

True to form, the group slip silently up both flights of stairs, ducking past the open window cut-outs. Raven doesn’t hesitate to step onto the third ledge over the alley and hop across, landing lightly over the balcony railing and bracing with her hands.

Two children come careening past Charles chasing a football down the street. Their excitement seeps into his afterthoughts like their steel-muffled shrieks of laughter.

Hank goes next. He steps onto the ledge and leaps, reaching for the balcony above and swinging himself over the railing next to Raven. Sean follows, jumping blithely and smacking straight into the brickwork. Hank catches him and he grins, allowing himself to be hauled over the bar. 

Alex hesitates. He steps onto the ledge and makes the mistake of looking down. Raven catches his eye and he shrugs, throws himself towards them and is unsurprised when Hank snatches him out of the air.

“You’re all going to be the death of me,” the poor man growls quietly.

_The owner of the flat is in the bathroom,_ Charles tells them. _Hurry._

Raven nods and resumes the lead, opening the door soundlessly and creeping inside. Though they’re not the most covert aesthetically, Charles is reminded once again, after much too long, how incredible they are as a team. The flat is crowded with furniture but otherwise easy to navigate, meaning they’re out through the front door in less than fifteen seconds.

_Up,_ Charles says next, and they head for the staircase immediately. _Someone living on the top floor may have caught a glimpse of him. It’s not much, I know, but that’s all I have._

_Are we going to be breaking into these people’s homes?_ Alex asks warily.

_I don’t want it to come to that._

_Let’s exhaust all other possibilities first,_ Hank says. 

They sneak along the hall and up two more flights of stairs. The carpet is brown and the walls are beige. The only things that change are the door numbers.

“There’s a ceiling hatch here,” Alex hisses. The others stop and look up, following his gaze. “Are there any others along the hall? Are there any other access doors?”

“I can see another one on the ceiling down there,” Hank whispers. 

“Let’s check this one out.” Raven motions for him to kneel so she can climb onto his back. Surprisingly, he lets her. The panel slides back and she disappears into the attic, reaching down one long arm to help the other three up after her.

_Was he hiding up here?_ Charles wonders faintly. _Why?_

“Maybe someone’s after him?” Alex suggests.

“Maybe, but it’s always safer in a bird’s nest,” Raven murmurs. She climbs through the insulation and over dangerously exposed pipes towards the far wall. Sean turns in the opposite direction and starts searching, so Alex and Hank take their cue to cover the remaining two walls. It takes blessedly few minutes for them to find anything—a thin sheet hidden in the roof, an empty water bottle, a sheet of a newspaper from _weeks_ ago, helpfully highlighted. 

_Why, for god’s sake,_ Hank thinks loudly. _He might as well just fucking signpost us._

“Scotland?” Sean asks. “Where the hell did he get this from?”

“Morden station, South West London, two months ago,” Raven snaps. “He’s been fucking _planning_ this.”

Alex chews his lip. “Maybe it was a contingency.”

“It better be—” she sneers, “—for _his_ sake.” 

_I think we found what we came for,_ Charles interrupts. _Do come back now, please. Carefully, mind._

They do. Hank makes sure to tuck the newspaper away in his atlas immediately, and they begin the drive back to the airport. Raven sits quietly, angry and defeated and radiating betrayal. Even Sean and Alex refrain from their jeers, keeping to mild games of I Spy and word association that they can persuade Hank and Charles to join.

More than once, Charles rouses himself from complete absorption into the memories of total strangers. It worries him, and not to mention poor Hank, how complacent he is in it. How happy he is to drown himself in it at the mere suggestion of Erik’s presence. 

He wonders what will happen if they can’t catch up, if Erik drops off the map completely; he decides, then, that some things really don't bear thinking about.

##### \- x -

“This can’t be right,” Alex says, “it’s too easy.”

“It’s right, Alex,” Hank assures him.

“Room three-one-seven,” Charles lifts straight from the mind of the young receptionist. Apprehension begins to seep into all of his cracks and chips. “He wasn’t even trying to hide.”

Raven, slightly calmer since that morning, sighs. “Well shall we go in, or are we going to stand around?”

“Professor, you okay?” Sean asks.

Charles smiles, even if it strains. “I’m fine, Sean. Follow on.”

Alex is right, of course: it really is too easy. The clerk smiles sweetly even as he worries over his baby sister’s broken arm. Of course, he had checked Erik out just that morning. Charles wants to scream. They were so close the room hasn’t even been turned over yet. 

The room hasn’t been turned over yet.

_Raven,_ he thinks hurriedly, _if we get there quickly we can be in and out before the cleaners do Erik’s room._

_Fuck,_ she replies, and he knows exactly how she feels without looking. _How the hell do we get into the room?_

Charles is silent while he thinks. The clerk hands two sets of keys over to Hank and points to the lifts. 

_We’ll have to wait for them to open the door. I can hold them, but we’d need to be quick to keep away from other guests._

_Deal,_ Raven says. 

“You have a plan,” Hank says, ever astute, once the lift doors clank shut. He hits a button and they begin the shudder upwards.

“Of course,” Charles replies with a smirk, revelling in how Hank tries not to laugh while he rolls his eyes.

“Don’t let us keep you, then. Room two-two-three once you’re done.”

“Good luck,” Alex huffs, stepping out of the lift as it opens onto the first floor. Sean mock salutes, lazily and with two fingers, and Hank ushers him out.

“If you don’t appear in half an hour we’ll come looking,” he tells them. Charles nods and hits the button for the floor above. 

“He’s such a _mom,”_ Raven sighs.

“I wouldn’t know, dear,” Charles says pleasantly. “But if that’s what you’re into…” She swats him on the arm.

They’re in luck when they turn into the right corridor; housekeeping have opened the door to 317, but are currently in one of the nearby supply cupboards. Charles keeps them there, barely a brush of his temple necessary, and makes sure no one else is about to turn into the hall.

“Clear,” he murmurs to Raven. She stalks ahead into the room and starts searching, and Charles, for once, feels like he’s a part of the team when he follows her in. He checks the bathroom first, with low expectations, before moving onto the desk on the other side of the room to Raven. 

He opens the top drawer and inhales sharply. “This is ridiculous.”

“What is?” she asks, pausing her search to hover over his shoulder.

“He’s made this far too easy.” In his hands is Erik’s entire notebook. Its pages match the ones they already have in colour, shape and weight, and there are whole sections stubbed and torn. He flips through briefly, finding newspaper articles pasted in and annotated—dates, addresses, data—sketches, pictures, polaroids.

“We should keep going,” Charles murmurs, closing the diary quickly. Raven returns to the bedside looking troubled. The remaining drawers are empty, the hotel stationary obviously disturbed, and the wastepaper basket home to several scrunched pieces of paper. Charles retrieves them tentatively. He unfolds them once he’s sure his side of the room holds no more secrets, finding half-done, abandoned sketches on every single one.

“Have you found anything?” he asks Raven distractedly. “We should move soon, we don’t have much time.”

“Nothing,” she sighs. “Come on, let’s split before you hurt yourself.”

Charles won’t bring himself to protest, not when he turns his head only for a splitting pain to lance sharply down his neck. He winces and rolls himself swiftly out, papers balanced on his lap. 

“Let go, Charles,” Raven hisses, and he does. The two women he’d stopped in the cupboard resume their task unconcerned, and the pressure lifts from the back of his mind.

“You’d think I’d be able to handle tasks this small after a whole week,” Charles grouses. Raven clicks her tongue as she hits the button in the lift, so he shuts his mouth. Room 223 is a short walk and two corridors away from the lift, and Sean opens the door for them immediately, grinning when he sees the notebook.

“Does this mean we win?” he asks nonsensically. Alex flicks a coke bottle cap at the back of his head.

“Let them in, doofus. Prof looks like he’s about to pass out.”

Charles frowns. “I’m quite all right, thank you, Alex.”

“Here,” Hank says when he wheels into the room, passing him a glass of water. Charles takes it and sips a few times, rolling his eyes on a scoff when Hank continues to stare him down.

“I’m _fine,_ really.”

“Can we look at the book?” Sean asks from his sprawl over Alex and Raven on the bed. Charles forces the rest of the glass down and positions himself at the end of the bed so that the boys (and Raven) can hang over his shoulders. They shuffle forward like squabbling puppies, their breath tickling the back of his neck until he waves them back and accidentally smacks Alex in the nose.

“Ouch,” he whines, “don’t gotta beat me up, Professor.”

Charles sighs. “And _how_ many times have I told you to call me Charles?”

Hank crouches down beside him while Alex hums his consideration. “Maybe one day.”

“The book, Charles?” Raven prompts. He doesn’t need to be told twice.

Charles flips the notebook open to the first page. It has a date in the top corner: 1964, a few days into their search for mutants. There’s a drawing on that page, a rough side view of the CIA facility. Illegal, probably, but who is the one to stop Erik Lehnsherr? The successive pages are also full of sketches, undated—side profiles, knuckles of a hand on a steering wheel, a flick of long hair, a half-burnt cigar, the lapels of a lab coat or a leather jacket, a tree, here or there. It slowly becomes clear that the majority of them are ultimately, unmistakably Charles. He feels his face heat, and even as he refuses to look at any of the others, he knows they know it too.

They’re all in there, outlined and half-defined. Alex, Sean, Angel, Darwin, Hank, Raven, Moira. There’s even a shaky likeness of Emma Frost, blemished with multiple smudges and dark lines from what was most probably Erik’s untamable anger. Some pictures have been slipped in of scenery around the mansion, taken and printed, Charles knows, by Moira. 

The sketches continue even after they realise the date is long past their intervention on the missile crisis. Different places around the world, different people, the same people, Charles. The drawings extend for page upon page, demanding more than half the book until they stop altogether, abruptly, and Charles’ hands are shaking noticeably.

Raven’s hand slides softly onto his shoulder. She grips it tightly for a moment before sliding her hand down his arm and back.

“It’s all right,” she says. “Would you like a moment?”

“No,” he answers, almost-levelly. “No, I’m okay. We haven’t looked at the important parts.”

He flips forward until he finds the first of the articles and photos.

“We’ll need to read these through properly,” Hank points out. “If you’d like me to do it, well… We don’t have much else to do today.”

“We can do it together,” Charles tells him, frowning as he skims each torn shred of paper. Almost every single one mentions mutants, the threat posed by them, and any proposed manner of ‘dealing’ with them. It’s all of Erik’s research. 

“Why would he leave this to us?” Sean wonders.

“Does he want us to pick it up?” Raven asks.

“Or is he warning us?” suggests Alex.

Inexplicably inspired, Charles flicks back to the last few drawings. “Hank, could you get the other ones for me, please?” Hank shuffles over to their bag and hoists out his atlas. He hands each page to Charles, who tries his best to fit them back into place.

“Austria,” he says, pointing to a sketch of the block of flats about twelve pages from the end. “The valley at Rossinière. Nice should be here, and Saint Domnius is here. The next few are a buffer until the other five we found in Seget. This is the corner shop in Turkey, and this is a map of Edinburgh, so by this logic, his next destination is here.”

Charles turns the page to a beautiful cliff view, stretching along a coastline of placid ocean and sandy beach.

“I know that place!” Raven exclaims. 

“Thank Christ,” Alex mutters, “because I bet none of _us_ do.”

She sighs heavily. “It’s part of western Portugal. Again, we were in hiding.”

“You sure did have quite the life of it in hiding,” Alex goads.

“Whatever. I can get us there. Now we have half a day to kill because he trapped us in a goddamn hotel.”

“We’re not trapped,” Sean says. 

“We were cajoled into landing ourselves here for at least one night,” Charles concedes. “He may be trying to buy himself some time.”

“Fuck!” Alex huffs. “He’s so fucking annoying!”

“Hey,” Hank soothes, ruffling Alex’s hair. “We might catch up to him tomorrow, you never know.”

_Doubt it,_ Charles hears Alex think, very loudly, but he says nothing aloud and basks under Hank’s attention instead.

“We can go through the notebook after lunch, I think,” Charles decides. He moves back to the desk and sets it down delicately before turning back to face the others. They all look pretty ready to drop, flopped over the duvet and dawdling listlessly. Privately, Charles is grateful for the excuse to make them stop and catch their breath. Who only knows where Erik will lead them next.

Hank runs his bottom lip between his teeth consideringly. “If Raven’s okay being here, we can look through this in the other room. Everyone else can take a nap, or something.”

“Of course, Hank. Shall we go downstairs?”

“Food,” Sean says simply. He rolls over until he’s hanging off the side of the bed and slides to the floor in a heap.

“…We could always order room service,” Charles amends. Sean groans, and the other two giggle.

“Let’s go with that,” Hank sighs, and reaches over Sean to the phone on the bedside table.

“At least we’ve learnt something good from all this,” he says later in Charles and Raven’s room.

“Oh?” Charles asks, noting down the date of the next article. “What would that be?”

“He hasn’t forgotten you.”

Charles scoffs. “I would think it might be a little odd to forget the people you saved the world with after only a few years.”

“You know what I mean, Charles,” Hank says, unimpressed. He taps the page he’s summarising. “We all saw what’s in here.”

“The question is why on Earth would he leave it for us.”

“He’s tired, can’t you tell?”

Charles frowns. “It looks to me that he’s still leading us on a merry chase.”

“Trust me on this one,” Hank implores, earnest. “He’s tired, and he’s scared. Of what, I’m not sure, but it could be coming back or it could be something to do with what’s in this book.”

“I don’t doubt you, Hank. There are some worrying things in here. Have you noticed this Bolivar Trask has appeared quite a few times already?”

He hums. “Yes. It seems like he’s poking his nose where we don’t want him to.”

The thought drags a horrified, anxious shiver from Charles, and they let the next twenty minutes pass quietly. He finds three more articles on Trask, wonders where the hell Erik’s been finding them, and is left to wait for Hank to finish up the last page.

“You’ve been better recently,” he tells Charles, unprompted, scribbling something at the bottom of his list.

“Better?” Charles repeats. “How so?”

“Calmer, more in control.” He smiles. “You’re happier.”

Charles returns a weary grimace. “I do want to at least make it look like I’m looking after you, even if it’s the other way around. I feel terribly irresponsible.”

“But it’s different now, isn’t it?” Hank says. “We have a purpose again. Raven’s back, we’re getting back on our feet.”

Charles nods. He looks down at his hands, no longer as prone to trembling as before. He knows his hair is neater, combed more often than it was a week ago and washed properly. He looks at Hank in front of him, smiling freely for the first time in months. The joking and laughter from the others, no longer walking on eggshells.

“I suppose things are starting to look up,” he allows, and Hank beams.

##### \- x -

With much trepidation, Charles and Hank relinquish the wheel to a very indignant Raven.

“Charles didn’t teach me to drive,” she says, “so I don’t know what _you’re_ so hung up on.”

Having flown into Porto, Raven drives them almost an hour up the coast to a house outside Carreço. 

“There’s nothing here,” Sean says, leaning out of the window into the heat of open fields.

“Exactly,” Raven replies. “Can’t sneak up, can’t sneak away. Nothing to gain, nothing to lose.”

“I think I’d lose my mind,” Alex grumbles. Slumped against Hank, for once in the back with them, he looks like the epitome of dread. He’s always been slightly more pessimistic than the others—probably more realistic, truth be told—and it’s as if he knows something that the others do not. It’s not like he hasn’t been wrong before, but… Charles worries with him. If Alex isn’t feeling confident, he’s not going to get his hopes up too high.

“Leave the bags,” Raven tells them. “We’re not staying longer than we have to.”

“What, no fans inside?” Sean jokes. 

“Well, now that you mention it…”

He groans, pouring himself out of the car as if he’s already melted. “Why is it so _hot?”_

“The weather,” Hank answers dryly. Alex giggles.

For all the whining, Charles can’t fault Sean for his complaints. Erik has picked a good time for a holiday in Portugal and a bad time for a wild goose chase. He can imagine his smirk as Erik powers on unaffected, leaving them all a dripping, sweating mess behind.

_“Keep up,”_ he would say, _“don’t want them thinking we’re out of shape.”_

Charles doesn’t know if it’s the heat or the sheer force of his hope that makes the image solidify for a moment, farther towards the edge of the cliff. Erik’s figure stands there, hands on hips, grinning down at them all before extending a hand to Charles. He wants to take it, he so desperately wants to take it, but one blink and it disappears, owner and all.

“Charles?” Raven calls from nearby. Charles sighs and tugs on a wayward strand of hair

“Coming, sorry.”

“Are you okay?” she asks quietly when he joins her.

“Tired,” he admits, still hanging on to the strand.

She closes her eyes briefly and her skin ripples. “I’m sorry.”

“Oh, my dear, it’s not for you to apologise for,” he chuckles. “Come on, let’s get this done.”

Raven doesn’t bother with her sneak in silently method. She throws open the door, letting it crash against the inside wall and yells, “Anyone around?”

She receives the best answer—none—and strides inside, beckoning the others to follow. The house is small, with barely a single bedroom. The living space is open and the only other door in the room leads to the toilet. Raven stops at the foot of the sofa, staring down at it with an inscrutable expression.

“How can this place take more than one person?” Alex asks, peering out of the window.

“It wasn’t exactly fun and games, being on the run all the time,” Raven replies irritably. “We didn’t have much.”

“Why, then?” Alex asks, only he’s not asking about her. “Why do it?”

“Because he had a plan,” she tells. Her eyes are no longer focused on the sofa but on the middle distance between them. “He had a plan and nothing else. But then this group of mutants with similar ideals and means to the end show up, so he jumps. It wasn’t all hardship, it wasn’t all smooth sailing. But when the means and the motivation started to disappear…” She spreads her palms to the group. “Well, here we are.” 

“There’s a photo, here,” Sean says. He kneels next to the fridge and slides it out from underneath. “It’s… Oh.”

Charles wheels over to inspect it with him, and _oh_ indeed. It’s a polaroid, a rare one of Erik himself. Seemingly unaware of the camera, he’s standing with Raven, Angel and Azazel around a table in an unknown room. Charles wonders who took the photo, seeing as he wouldn’t peg most of Erik’s company as sentimental. He wouldn’t have pegged Erik as terribly sentimental, either, before he’d seen his notebook.

Behind them comes a dull thud and a crash as things fall to the floor in the bedroom. Raven appears to have taken it upon herself to tear the place to pieces for clues, suddenly incensed by some fleeting thought or other. Hank and Alex have wisely stayed well away, very nearly cowering under the coffee table.

“Nothing!” she yells, storming back towards them. “There’s fucking nothing except this!” She thrusts a thin, clear rectangle of plastic into the midst of the group. Encased inside is a shamrock, perfectly intact, and Charles realises it’s a pressed flower in a bookmark.

“What the hell’s this?” Alex asks. “You sure it’s his?”

“Yes, I’m fucking _sure,”_ she spits, though her anger is not directed at him. She thrusts a hand into the bag on her shoulder and retrieves a notebook, worn and overflowing with paper. She opens to the bookmark and replaces it with her finger to hold it out with Erik’s. It’s the same shape and size, with a pink dog rose in the centre. 

“A flower of historical literary influence,” Hank says, somewhat absently. “Thematic symbolism connected with pleasure and pain.”

“Didn’t know you knew so much about flowers, Bozo,” Alex says.

“I don’t,” Hank replies quickly. “It just shows up in a lot of literature, as I said.”

Raven clears her throat. “I know this is his, because I was there when he got them.” 

“Well, does that mean it’s the clue?” Sean asks.

“It was a bookshop in Ireland, Blackrock. I was looking at them while he and Emma were browsing.”

“Miss Frost?” Charles interrupts, shivering at unbidden memories of Shaw in the Oval office.

“Yes,” she says. “He saw me and bought them when I wasn’t looking. Now I can’t tell if he’s just a coward or if he’s taunting us. I’d like to think it’s coward.”

“Then we follow the lead,” Alex shrugs. “As always, it’s the best we have.”

Raven replaces the bookmarks in her notebook and stalks off without another word. The boys look uneasily between each other before following after her.

“Well,” Charles says quietly, “at least we’ve been able to perfect our quick in-and-out.”

Hank snorts. “Whatever you say, Professor.”

##### \- x -

“We’re looking for a guest who may have stayed here,” Charles says, smiling for the receptionist. “Erik Lehnsherr.”

“One moment, Sir,” she says, though Charles already knows the answer. Raven had taken them to this hotel, told them it was where they’d stayed before. All Charles had to do was ask the clerks what he could then skim from their memories, just in case. This girl hasn’t seen Erik ever, and neither has her colleague. 

“I’m afraid we haven’t had anyone by that name, Sir. Is there anything else I can help you with?”

“Ah, no thank you,” he replies. “Just looking for an old friend.”

She smiles. “Of course Sir. Have a nice day.”

“Thank you, my dear,” he says, and feels like an old man. He’s only mid-thirties, for crying out loud.

“No sign,” he tells the boys. “Is Raven back yet?”

“She’s here,” Raven says, appearing at his shoulder. “That was a fancy bathroom.”

“Says you,” Alex laughs. “There are more fancy bathrooms in your house than I’ve ever seen separately in my life.”

“Maybe people just don’t bother making the men’s room so nice,” she smirks. “Anyway, I guess that was a dud. Should we check elsewhere?”

“Probably,” Hank says. “There are a few more hotels around, it would be worthwhile checking before we try anything else.”

The next hotel is only a few hundred metres down the road. Hank goes with Charles to the desk and fumbles his words when the receptionists giggle, and Charles scatters his mind to every employee in the vicinity. They find nothing. 

It’s much the same in the hotel three roads away, the hotel on the other side of town, every bed and breakfast they pass and even in restaurants. They stroll down every road and side road they can under the pretense of tourism. Charles stretches himself to everyone and anyone, regardless of who’s local and who’s visiting, but there’s nothing. Nothing, nothing, _nothing, anywhere._ Not a damn thing that could lead them to Erik. Nothing at all.

They stop for an early dinner down a street, and Charles doesn’t care that he doesn’t know where they are. All they _do_ know is that Erik’s been nowhere near.

“What do we do now?” Sean asks, stirring his drink. “We can’t search the whole city.”

“Dublin?” Alex says. “That would take ages! Not to mention all the Professor’s energy for a month.”

“We’ve turned up nothing,” Charles grumbles to himself. “Not even a glimpse.”

“And that’s not your fault.” Raven insists. “How could it be? We didn’t know he’d be here for certain. We could scour the country and probably never find him.” She looks at Charles, and he looks back. “No, we are not scouring the country. Or the city. Don’t be stupid, Charles.”

“I’m not—”

“Yes, you are. We’re not doing it.”

“The trail’s gone cold,” Hank mutters.

“I could,” Charles says. “I could do it if I had Cerebro, I’m sure.”

“We don’t doubt that,” Sean replies. “But Cerebro isn’t here.”

Alex sighs, elbows slipping across the table as he lies across it. “There’s not… I don’t see what else we can do.”

“I don’t think there is anything,” Raven says, but it’s almost a whisper. Her hands hold each other tightly in her lap. “I’m sorry, Charles.”

“What?” he asks, sitting up straight. “Why are you sorry? None of this is your fault, Raven.”

“No, I led you halfway across Europe and we have fuck all to show for it. It was a waste of time. I’m sorry.”

“There’s no need for anyone to be blaming anyone,” Alex says. “Except Erik.”

“We would have gone after him anyway, even with even less of a lead,” Sean chuckles. “It’s not like any of us actually _hate_ him still or anything.”

Charles sees Hank open his mouth, but he closes it when Alex elbows him. 

“Hate is indeed a strong word,” he murmurs.

They take a walk along the beach after dinner. The sun is setting inland and twilight is already descending over the water. The sky is unusually clear, opening the world around them like the lid off a box and making Charles feel his helplessness and heartache all the more keenly. People are still wanderung about, packing up beach gear and making the best of the good weather despite the chill.

“Charles,” Hank says, keeping pace at his side. “Charles, I think it’s time to go home.”

Charles hums quietly and remains staring out to sea.

“I mean it. You need to rest, who knows what coming off that serum will have done to you.” Charles holds his silence. Hank runs his lip between his teeth. “Maybe we can come back, in a week or two. Pick up the search. Maybe Cerebro will have told you something, maybe we’ll have thought of something by then.”

“I’m sorry,” Charles says finally. They come to a stop, wandering no farther from the others waiting for them fifty yards back. “You’re right.”

“Charles, there’s nothing for you to apologise for,”

Charles smiles, weakly. “Thank you, Hank. Let’s go home.”

##### \- x -

The journeys have been so monotonous and wearing that Charles has stopped bothering to think about them. The drives are much more tolerable; he enjoys driving, and seeing all the sights and the people. 

Air travel has none of that, and the flight from Dublin to New York is incredibly long.

##### \- x -

New York might be five hours behind, but the flight was still many more than that. They arrive mid morning and are back at the house by noon, and none the happier for it. Hank makes sure to stop for groceries on the way and helps Raven make them all lunch. 

It’s a solemn affair, of course. They’d left with the expectation of returning with a plus one, either for Raven or Charles’ sake none of them are really sure. The boys are, wonderfully, closer than ever. Charles wonders just how much he’d missed while he’d been hiding himself away as he watches them around the table. They fold Raven back into their midst seamlessly, selflessly, and despite the years she has on them. She’s awkward and still unsure of her welcome, but so obviously happy to be home that Charles doesn’t need to go anywhere near her mind to know it.

They all drift out of the room, eventually. Sean offers to do the washing up and disappears noisily into the kitchen. Alex begs out for a run and actually offers for Raven to join him. She stares for a moment, eyes searching, but inevitably jumps up to join him.

“Are you going back to your labs, Hank?” Charles asks.

Hank sighs and swirls the remains of the juice in his glass. “Not just yet. I might end up breaking things.”

Charles frowns. “Are you all right? Is there something wrong?”

“Oh, no,” he says. “Just tired. And angry.”

“Oh,” Charles says. For once in his life he’s at a bit of a loss for words. Is Hank angry at him? Hank drops the glass back onto the table and sits back heavily. 

“Erik’s a dick.”

Charles blinks. He looks at Hank, who looks up from the table to watch back, and then promptly bursts into laughter.

“What?” Hank asks. “He is.”

“Sorry,” Charles says through his grin, “sorry. You took me by surprise.”

Hank rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling too. “You can’t tell me he isn’t and expect me to believe you.”

“No,” Charles replies. “It’s not like I disagree with you.”

“I’m glad.” He smiles, and excuses himself from the table.

When night falls over the mansion, it’s as quiet as it’s always been. The breeze persists in periodically frisking the trees for their leaves, once or twice deciding to pick at a loose window pane somewhere on the house. The rooms themselves are near silent, inside, built to withstand the cold and the heat and the elements by his father. But there’s something else, tonight. Something Charles hasn’t felt for a long while, long enough to begin to forget what it’s like.

There’s a voice, a presence that he’s been yearning to feel. To hear. It’s as familiar as the duvet he used to hide beneath as a child, curled next to Raven and playing make-believe in the dark. The presence, it’s a comfort, a prop. But it’s cold now. Cold and alone. Wounded. 

Charles wants to run. He wants to leap from his bed and leg it all the way down to the patio doors himself. Instead he levers himself swiftly into his chair and rolls there, a sedate pace even under shaking hands.

The night is thankfully warm, clear, and dripping with petrichor. He finds himself at their spot at the balcony overlooking the grounds—and it is still their spot, to him. The dish is no longer visible in the starlight, not with the swathe of inky black lawn that rolls before it.

Charles looks down, and stops breathing.

It’s like a dream. A dream he never wants to wake up from.

Erik is there, plain as day, sitting with his back to the wall. The helmet is gone. Nowhere in sight. Charles feels the iron shackle lift from his chest for the first time in years.

“What finds you here?” It’s a question asked serenely, pleasantly as he rolls to a stop beside Erik, positioned to gaze out over the grounds with him.

“Nothing in particular,” Erik lies. And Charles knows now, knows for sure, that his voice is as smooth as it was when he first fell in love with it.

“You worried Raven,” he says. 

“She knows I can look after myself.”

“Maybe she thinks you shouldn’t have to.”

“…Since when have you cared about what she wants from me?”

“Since you nearly dropped off the face of the Earth.”

Erik laughs. He laughs properly, like he did when they would sit here and joke together before. Like he did when Charles would make silent, disparaging remarks about the people they met on their travels.

“If I had wanted to disappear, I would have. Surely you know as much.”

Charles lets the tears well up behind his eyes, but he won’t let them fall. “And still you gave us a difficult time of it.”

“I couldn’t make it easy for you now, could I?”

“Since when has anything about you been easy?” he asks softly. His voice wobbles.

“I’m sorry,” Erik says suddenly, as though he isn’t apologising for leading them on a chase around half a continent. “I’m sorry.”

“What gave you a change of heart?” Charles whispers. He’s scared, in that moment. Terrified that it isn’t real. Terrified that Erik hasn’t come here with a changed heart. Terrified that he’ll find him just to lose him again.

But Erik just sighs. “It was the nightmares, Charles.” And Charles’ broken heart breaks again. “Whenever I see that beach I see you, lying in the sand. I see you in Russia, sitting beside me in the back of that truck, and I see you with the children in that American’s concrete prison. Bloody, broken. A Charles that will never come back. It scares me.

“Sometimes I don’t know what’s real. Sometimes I think the true reality is the you in my head, that I walked away and dreamt you alive instead.”

“Erik,” Charles says on the barest of breath, voice stuck low in his throat. _“Erik.”_

“I never hated you, Charles. I hated the people who took advantage of you, who hurt you, and that you let them. You let the humans walk all over you, and I hated it. The day we stood here and you dropped the gun from my head… I felt real. You helped me, Charles. And then I threw it all away.”

“No,” Charles chokes, hoarse. “You didn’t. You were angry.”

“I threw my life away the moment I left you,” Erik says quietly. “I didn’t trust that woman, and I left you with her anyway. I took your sister with me. I might as well have left you to die, and I hated myself for it. I have always hated myself for it.”

“You had Raven,” Charles whispers.

“She was scared and clinging to anyone who showed her love. I took her away and it tore the both of you apart. I shouldn’t have done it. I shouldn’t have gone.”

Charles is out of things to say. He’s angry, yes. He’s absolutely furious, but most of all he’s tired and he’s hurting. And Erik is too. Charles won’t defend him to the others, but his heart has been making up excuses for him since he left. He puts his head in his hands, folding towards his knees. The tears slip down his cheeks despite his wishes.

“Charles,” Erik says, kneeling at his feet. “I’m so sorry.”

Charles reaches out to take Erik’s by the shoulder and pull him forwards. He buries his face in Erik’s collar and tries _so_ hard to keep it together. He’s warm, so, so warm. Alive. His heart beats strongly in his chest. Erik is home.

“I know no amount of apologies will make up for it,” he murmurs. His hands come to rest on Charles’ back and in his hair. “I fell in love with you here, but I thought I could run.”

Charles startles. He turns his face so he can take in a shuddering breath and try not to break apart. Erik’s jaw rests against his forehead, and his voice reverberates deeply through his chest and into Charles.

“I was wrong about that. I will always love you.”

Charles lifts a hand and brings it down hard on Erik’s chest. He sits up and shoves at his shoulder.

“You fucking arse, Erik!” he shouts. He swipes roughly at the tears and at his nose. “You complete and utter arse! How dare you! I’ve been looking for you all this time, and you say this _now?!_ You're a dramatic bastard, you know that? Fucking— _drama queen!"_

Erik looks so pitiful kneeling there in front of him. The light of the moon picks at the shadows of his face and digs them deeper. It shines brightly in his eyes and his watery gaze and exposes the high flush over his cheeks.

“I've _always_ loved you, you idiot!” he continues. “It’s pathetic, and it’s true! I wanted to _be there_ for you. I wanted us to be in this together. I thought we would build our lives from the ground up, anyone else be damned!” He closes his eyes for just a moment, letting the sting of new tears track its way down his face. “It never had to be one or the other, Erik. I wanted it to be both.” 

Erik inhales sharply. He runs a hand, feather light, over Charles’ arm. Charles snatches it and pulls him close so he falls forward and their arms tangle and he thinks they might never let go again. He kisses him desperately, a kiss so longed for Charles can no longer tell his reality from his dreams.

Erik kisses him just as fervently, fingers in his hair and on his face, eyes shut tight with a running mantra of _please, please, please,_ that Charles would be hard-pressed to block out. They break apart, but not for long, with neither able to hold back from each intoxicating touch, murmur of lips, brush of warmth from mouth or mind.

“Charles,” Erik mumbles, dropping his face into his shoulder.

“Come home, Erik,” he says. “Please.” 

Erik’s arms tighten around him, and things feel like they might start being all right again.

“We chased you around fucking _Europe,_ you know that?” he mutters what might be minutes later. “And I’m not giving your jacket back.” Erik’s choked laugh rumbles through the both of them. When Charles sits up again he stays right where he is, balancing on his knees, and takes hold of Charles’ hands.

A door slams loudly in the quiet, and the sound of running feet comes clattering down the stairs.

“Professor?” Hank calls. “Charles!”

“Charles!” Raven repeats. Oh good, they’ve woken up the whole house.

He looks at Erik and Erik smiles again, like it’s a private joke between just the two of them. He doesn’t bother to stand when the boys come careening round the corner, only squeezes Charles’ hands tighter.

“Charles!” Hank, once again blue and furry, sighs. “We heard—”

_“Erik!?”_ Sean shouts. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“What? Erik?”

“Erik!”

“Ah,” Erik says, “looks like I’ve been caught.”

“You bastard!” Alex begins. “You have no idea how much effort we—”

Charles clears his throat. “Alex, please.”

“Professor!”

“Save your shouting for the morning, when we’re all coherent enough for it.”

“But Professor…” he complains again, though the fight drops instantly from his shoulders.

“Well,” Sean says into the awkward lull. “This is unexpected,”

Hank scowls even Alex turns and thunks his forehead onto his chest. “You could say that again.” 

“Unexpected indeed,” Raven agrees, and she’s absolutely fuming.

Charles looks back to Erik. “You have a lot of explaining to do tomorrow.”

“Apparently so.”

“If you came here expecting open arms from everyone you’ll be sorely disappointed, I’m sure.”

Erik laughs shortly. “I’m not that optimistic. Shouldn’t you all be in bed?”

“No thanks to you, but your room is where you left it,” Hank says, and walks off. Alex and Raven glare for a moment longer before following, taking Sean along with them.

“Welcome back,” Charles says, and smiles.

“They have such a way with people,” Erik sighs.

##### \- x -

“So what happened to Angel?” Sean asks the next morning, when they’re all stood facing off with Erik in the dining room.

Erik frowns. “I thought she'd come here.”

“Why the hell would she do that? If Raven's feeling guilty, she'll be a hundred times worse!” He strolls over and stops less than a foot from under Erik's nose. “Oh, but I guess you didn't think about that, did you, because you have the empathy of a fruit fly and a grand total of one emotion!”

“You're forgetting one,” Hank says. “Being in over his head for Charles.”

Alex laughs, but he isn't amused. “Yes, yes! How could I forget? Oh, _maybe_ it's because you abandoned him to bleed out on a random beach in fucking _Cuba?_ Because you turned away at every fucking step? Oh, what a poor soul you are.”

Alex's arm snaps out and hits Erik heavily in the stomach. He turns around and storms off without another word.

Charles expects Erik, bent double and clutching his middle, to drag him back by his hoodie zip and rip him a new one, but he does nothing. After a moment he manages to straighten up.

Hank growls threateningly, and Charles is sure he’s about to do the same. To his, and he’s sure Erik’s, relief, Hank just turns away to go after Alex. Sean gives Erik both middle fingers.

“You’re still an asshole, so don't expect this to be over so soon,” he warns, and takes off after the others. “Hank! Alex!” his voice echoes. “Don't leave me out of this!”

Raven, finally, comes to stand in front of Erik.

“I don't know why you look like you expect me to hit you,” she says. “I made my own mistakes. But I didn’t _leave_ because I was sad. I didn’t leave without a word and leave you sitting like a goddamn duck or have you chase me into eight countries. _Coordinates,_ Erik! Specific coordinates! You couldn’t have been more obnoxious if you tried.” She huffs and paces away, before turning around and slapping him, hard, across the face. “That's for misleading me.” She punches him in the stomach. “And that's for hurting Charles. Don't do it again.”

She spins on her heel and storms out.

Erik groans, dropping to the floor to sit down. “She can really do some damage,” he wheezes.

“You probably shouldn’t have given her the opportunity to,” Charles says reasonably, watching him recollect himself.

“I can’t argue with that,” he replies eventually. “Did Angel really not come back to you?”

Charles shakes his head. “We haven’t seen or heard anything, I’m afraid. I might be able to find her with Cerebro, but…” 

“Who knows where she went.” Erik sighs, resting an elbow on his knee to rub at his temple.

“Well,” Charles ventures, “I think they’ve gotten it out of their systems for now. I’m honestly shocked that Hank managed to keep his claws out of you at all, let alone keep from tearing your arms off.”

Erik eyes him sideways. “That’s… Are you serious?”

“Deathly.” 

He nods to himself, looking nonetheless a little green. Charles smiles and holds out his hand. “Will you live?”

“For now,” he says, taking the hand and hoisting himself off the floor. “Charles, I…”

Charles lifts Erik’s hand to his mouth, already memorising his warmth, his scars, his smell. “You’re back,” he mumbles against his fingers, “and that’s what matters most to me. Thank you.”

“I don’t think I could have stayed away if I’d tried,” Erik admits. “I’m yours for as long as you’ll have me.”

Charles laughs, slipping his fingers through Erik’s. “That, my friend, is going to be a very, very long time.”

##### \- x -

Their lives at the mansion quickly, unspokenly, settle into a new version of the old norm. Each of them wake up and go about their business, be it exercising, working, searching for mutants, moping, science-ing, listening to loud music, having not-so-secret rendezvous, or reading. Most of them hover around the kitchen at lunch time, which evolves into the regular meal time gathering they used to have, and converge like clockwork on the dining room for dinner. They take turns cooking without complaint too, and Charles is beginning to think that food is the only universal motivating factor to exist.

Once the plates are cleared and casual (occasionally awkward) conversation resumes, Erik excuses himself and heads off to hide himself in his room. Charles knows this because he often does the same a couple of hours later, once either he, the games and television, or the conversation has been exhausted. He senses him sitting or sleeping in the next room over consistently for a week.

Next, Erik chooses to rediscover the library in the evenings. Sean tells them this one morning, claiming to have almost fallen over him when searching for something new to read. They all look between each other, an odd sensation of something settling, finally, and then it’s decided; Erik is not allowed to run away any longer.

It takes another week for this to take effect. Sean engages him in nonsensical conversation in his best attempt to tie him into the group. Hank offers to show him his discoveries in the lab, though it ends up as only the two of them alone in there, talking painfully politely amidst the equipment. Raven tries plying him with alcohol, walking him into the lounge and managing to keep him there for a whole extra half-hour before he runs away again. 

In the end it’s Erik himself who pulls his sorry arse out of exile.

“Would you… care for a game, Charles?” he asks halfway through that third week. They’re still in the doorway of the lounge, having followed Alex and Raven inside and left the others to the washing up. Charles looks up, pleasantly surprised, and smiles when Erik gestures to the board sat vacant in the corner.

“It would be my pleasure,” he replies, rolling eagerly over to take up his usual side. Erik smiles and sits across from him, levitating the apparently amusing steel-footed pieces into place.

“It’s your move,” he says, and the mansion feels that much more like a home again.

The first few times they play, Erik seems to think keeping the others around is for the best. Charles doesn’t know if this is for his or their peace of mind, but he doesn’t complain. Each brush of a hand, each too-long glance makes him feel like he’s seventeen again and giggling over poorly kept secrets. Erik keeps his gaze steady and his hands gentle, looking at him as if looking to the very core of his being. 

When they do eventually migrate to the drawing room or the library, the quiet they invariably lapse into is a comfort blanket, bolstered by the crackling fire, clicking of chess pieces, or the scrape of crystal over dark wood tables. 

“We should be able to reopen the school, soon,” Charles says lightly one evening, when he’s lost count of the days and the small, private smiles. The muffled melodies of LaVern Baker drift up to them from one of the ground floor rooms below.

“That’s good,” Erik replies. “You’re not thinking of taking on all the work yourself, are you?”

Charles laughs. “Of course not. I have you, don’t I? And the others are better than good with the children. Hank’s been working on the reaccreditation.”

“Me?” Erik repeats as if it’s something particularly amusing. “You can’t possibly be saying what I think you are.”

“Well, we are in need of someone to teach European languages.” Charles smirks, taking Erik’s rook and replacing it with his knight.

“And you want to trust me with a cohort of school children.” 

Charles looks up to find Erik looking back with decided disbelief. “I can’t think of anyone I’d rather have. You could always do politics instead, of course.”

Erik ends up agreeing to both, but that might only be because Charles beckons him across the table and kisses him sweetly enough that they both forget whose turn it is. After weeks of nothing but fleeting touches since the night they’d returned, the press of Erik’s lips to his is a huge rush of adrenaline and warmth straight to his chest. Erik stands, barely breaking contact, and manoeuvers himself around the board and onto the sofa Charles has positioned himself on. Charles reaches up and clutches at Erik’s arm, fingers sinking through his familiar black jumper and gripping the muscle beneath. Erik’s hands twitch for him in like, finally resting at his hip and the side of his neck. His touch is warm, searing, almost, and doesn’t so much quell Charles’ aching yearning as it does exacerbate it.

“Charles,” Erik murmurs. “May I?”

Charles presses more overjoyed kisses to his mouth. “If you don’t, darling, I might just cry.”

Erik smiles and leans against the back of the sofa to shift his hand and pull Charles’ legs up over his lap. Charles sighs and shifts into his side, tracing fingers down his neck. Erik closes his eyes and tilts his head down again to take care of Charles’ lips. The music below them swells as if Raven’s gotten hold of the gramophone and cranked up the volume.

“I love you,” Charles confesses quietly. “Thank you for coming back to me.”

“I will love you to the ends of the Earth,” Erik replies, burying his nose in Charles’ hair. “I’m sorry I ever left.”

Charles shakes his head. “It’s done now. You’re here. The prodigal sister returned. We’ve always been better together.”

“I feel you may be right,” Erik replies, holding him ever closer.

Stumbling footsteps and shrieks of laughter clatter through the downstairs lounge under the grace of Baker’s geniality. Charles can easily imagine Alex and Raven leading Hank through a doubtlessly confusing and energetic dance to the encouragement of Sean’s sideline heckling. Even Erik seems to be hiding a smile against his forehead as they lie there, wholly content to bask in the warmth and happiness of their family.

##### \- Xavier House, Westchester, 1967 -

“Erik!” Charles shouts. “Raven’s in the driveway!”

“What?” Erik replies, striding into the hallway, coat and hat in hand. “She isn’t supposed to be back for a while.” He hangs his things on the bannister and wanders over to Charles, running a hand over his shoulder in reassurance. “I’m sure she’s okay.”

“Raven? She’s early,” Sean joins in, appearing from somewhere down the hall. Charles nods and opens the front door, watching her car pull up in front of them.

“Did someone say Raven’s back?” comes a shout from upstairs. Without waiting for an answer, Angel comes rushing down on heavy feet, leaping the last few steps and landing beside them with a flutter. It’s the most energetic Charles thinks he’s ever seen her, and especially since they’d brought her home from Albuquerque.

Outside, Raven climbs out of the driver’s side and slams the door, immediately going to the back passenger and leaning inside.

“Oh,” Charles says weakly. “Oh my goodness.”

After a moment she straightens up. In her arms she clutches a small boy, maybe four years old, who in turn clings to her quietly. He’s bright blue, from the tips of his ears to the spade of his tail, which flicks and curls up tightly around her arm. Beside Charles, Angel gasps. She takes one step forward, a second, and then darts off towards them. The gravel crunches harshly and the little boy startles, pulling ever closer into Raven’s chest.

“Is he…?” Charles hears her ask. Raven nods before she can finish.

“Welcome home, Raven,” he tells her when they get in.

“Charles,” she replies, voice mere moments from breaking. “I—”

“He’s gorgeous,” Charles interrupts, smiling. “What’s his name?”

“Kurt. He’s four and he’s a mutant, and he’s—he’s mine.”

Erik’s hand tightens on his shoulder briefly, but Charles beams, delighted, and presses his hands to his lap to keep them still. “May I say hello?”

Raven nods, crouching between them and stroking her fingers through Kurt’s hair. “Kurt, mein Schatz. Sehen auf mich.”

Kurt picks his head up out of her neck and blinks around at them all. His fists remain clenched in her shirt though his tail flicks out experimentally.

“This is your Uncle,” she says, holding her free hand out to Charles. “His name is Charles. Can you say hello to him?”

Kurt turns his wide, yellow eyes to Charles and nods. “Hallo,” he says quietly. “My name is Kurt.”

“It’s very nice to meet you, Kurt,” Charles responds, slowly offering a hand to him. Again, he watches the movement closely, but reaches out a hand to touch. Ever so gently, Charles sends some calm and reassurance his way. He giggles, and Charles grins.

“This is your Uncle Erik, Kurt,” she says next, pointing to Erik. Erik takes his cue to crouch at Charles’ side, an arm sliding around his back, likewise holding out a hand to the little boy. 

“Freut mich, Kurt,” he says gently. Kurt lets go of Charles and bats at Erik’s hand instead. 

“Hallo,” he repeats slowly, amazed by the attention. Charles leans happily into Erik’s side as he watches.

“Were you two going out?” Raven asks.

“Yes,” Erik replies. “Charles wanted to do another home visit, but that can wait. What about you?”

“I’m sorry I’m back so early,” she says, wrapping her arms around her middle. “I have files, evidence, it’s all in the car. But I ran into this circus on my way out—a _circus_ —and they had him there, _performing._ They had my baby, Erik. I couldn’t leave him.”

“I understand,” Erik says at once. “I’m so sorry, Raven.”

Raven nods, wiping at her conspicuously glistening eyes. Angel places her hand gently on her back, and she smiles.

There’s a small noise, suddenly, like a very fluffy cushion being sat on. A small puff of blue smoke billows out from where Kurt had been, clinging to all three Raven, Erik and Charles. Angel yelps, finding herself with an unexpected armful of little boy.

“Hey!” she exclaims, grinning at Kurt’s giggling face. “You surprised me, little guy!”

“Holy crap!” Sean says. “That’s so cool!”

“He teleports?” Charles asks Raven, who is still crouching in front of him, mouth agape.

“I… It looks like it. He hasn’t done that before.”

“His gifts seem to have manifested quite early,” Erik remarks, tilting his head as he watches Angel coddling Kurt. “He’s quite amazing, Raven.”

“He is,” she agrees. “I’ll get the files. Are you two still heading out? I have some quite worrying news…”

“We’ll hear that first,” Charles says, wholly unsurprised when Kurt teleports himself straight back into Raven’s arms once she’s outside. He realises Erik is watching him when he turns to talk to Angel, pausing instead to look at him.

“What is it, my love?” he asks.

Erik glances through the open door and back. “Nothing, really. You’re all right though, aren’t you?”

“Of course I am,” Charles smiles, reaching out to catch Erik’s fingers between his. “I’m glad that they’re home. Any new addition to the family will always be welcome.”

_You want this too, don’t you?_ Erik projects to him. _For us._

Charles bites his lip, feeling the searing of tears rise unbidden behind his eyes. He nods, and Erik swoops in to hug him tightly. 

_I feel the same._ He says.

“Is everything okay?” Raven asks, hurrying in and closing the door behind her.

“Of course,” Erik says, smiling gently as he stands up. He winks at Charles, and then raises his voice slightly. “And Laurie, I know you’re there. Shouldn’t you be with Mr. McCoy?”

“Sorry Sir!” the poor girl yelps, hurrying from her hiding place and up the stairs behind them.

“Leave the children alone,” Charles tuts. “It’s almost as if you’re _trying_ to get them to be scared of you.”

“They are scared of me,” Erik says. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Charles raises a brow at him. “Laurie adores you, darling. Ever since you helped her, and even before.”

“She doesn’t _adore_ me,” Erik argues, clearly disgruntled. 

“Oh, Erik,” Charles sighs fondly. “It’s okay to be liked.”

The next thing Charles knows is that Kurt is sitting happily on his lap and Raven is looking at them fondly, despite her obvious worry.

“Can we go somewhere to talk?” she asks. “It’s Trask… He’s moving faster than we thought.”

Charles’ fingers twitch around Erik’s and he brings his free hand up to steady Kurt. “Whatever it is,” he says, “we’re going to fix it. Trask won’t even suspect a thing.”

“Just a normal day’s work, then,” Sean grins. “Let’s get to it.”

“The sooner it’s done, the sooner you can go and visit your new recruits,” Raven agrees. “Who is it this time, anyway?”

“Twins,” Charles says. “I found them only a few hours’ drive away. They’re about highschool age, and go by the names Pietro and Wanda Maximoff.”

“Huh,” she says. “Who’d’a thought there would still be some right under our noses?”

Angel tilts her head, peering over at them. “Hey, are you all right Erik?”

Sean, Charles and Raven turn to look at Erik, who’s gone tense and pale as a sheet. Kurt makes a noise and teleports back to his mother.

“Uh,” Sean says, “those family additions you mentioned might be stacking up faster than you thought, Professor.”

Charles closes his mouth, still blinking slowly. “I suppose I ought to be careful what I wish for,” he murmurs. “Still—the more the merrier, wouldn’t you say, my dears?”

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [tumblr!](https://silverxsakura.tumblr.com/)


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